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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with sugar, butter, sour milk, flour, eggs, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and a sugar‑water icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spice 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the 5 eggs and fold them into the batter.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the icing, boil 4 cups of sugar with 1 cup of boiling water until it reaches a candy‑like consistency.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the reserved egg whites while beating continuously until well combined.

  4. Once cooled, spread the icing between the layers of the cake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb and brown the cake.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the egg whites. Hot sugar syrup cooks the egg whites as it is beaten in, forming a stable, glossy icing. Pouring it slowly while beating keeps it smooth and prevents scrambled lumps.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, allspice. 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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