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Dessert

Little Cinnamon and Clove Cakes

A small cake made from beaten egg white, loaf sugar, and cinnamon or clove oil, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Little Cinnamon and Clove Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  2. Gradually add sifted loaf sugar until thick enough to cut into shapes.

  3. Flavor the mixture with essential oil of cinnamon or cloves.

Bake

  1. Spoon the mixture into small tin shapes.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + cinnamontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,058 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to a stiff foam that gives the cakes their light, airy structure.
Loaf sugar
Stiffens the whipped white so the mixture holds its shape when cut and baked.
Essential oil of cinnamon or cloves
Adds the spiced aroma that flavors the cakes.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white until stiff. Egg white foam sets the structure of the cakes. If it is under-whipped, the mixture stays runny and will not hold its shape; over-whipping makes it dry and grainy. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable.

“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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