Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
A Cheap Seed-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.
Prepare the dough
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, allspice, and ginger.
Melt the butter with the milk until warm, then add the yeast.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients to form a dough.
Let the dough rest in a warm place for a few minutes.
Add seeds or currants as desired.
Bake
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake for 1.5 hours.
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.
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Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,359 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,302 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown during baking.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form the dough.
- Active dry yeast
- Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes lighter.
The step that matters
Let the dough rest in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to become active and produce gas. A warm rest lets the dough rise; if it is too cold, the dough will not rise well and the cake will be dense.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, allspice, ginger, butter, milk):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, allspice, ginger, butter, milk. 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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