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Dessert

Old-fashioned Election Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, spices, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Old-fashioned Election Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the yeast with warm milk and let it activate.

  2. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks to the butter mixture and mix well.

  4. Stir in the activated yeast mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  6. Combine the flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.

  7. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture until smooth.

  8. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  9. If desired, add raisins to the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased pans and let it rise before baking.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's main structure as its gluten sets during baking.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and keeps the crumb tender.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify; whipped whites lighten the batter.
Active dry yeast
Ferments and produces gas that makes the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour and yeast.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whites hold air that lightens the batter. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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