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Dessert

Spice Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, flour, brown sugar, spices, sour milk, and eggs.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

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

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

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

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the sour milk.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  2. Fold the beaten egg white into the batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  4. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, it adds lift and a light, airy crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg white intact. Stirring vigorously would deflate them and reduce the lift the cake gets from its rise.

Swap the clove

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

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

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