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Dessert

All-spice Cake

A simple cake made with egg, cream, butter, sugar, allspice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

All-spice Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg with the cream.

  2. Warm the mixture over low heat.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, and all-spice, stirring until combined.

  4. Pour the mixture over the flour and mix into a paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the paste to your desired thickness and cut into shapes.

  2. Place the cakes on a tin covered with several layers of paper or a board to prevent quick baking.

  3. If using a small portable oven, spread wood ashes over the bottom.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the finished cake.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the paste once it is combined with liquid and fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown lightly during baking.
Cream
Contributes moisture and richness to the paste.

The step that matters

Place the cakes on a tin covered with several layers of paper or a board to prevent quick baking.. Direct heat from below can scorch the bottom of the cakes before the centre cooks through. A layer of paper or board slows heat transfer so the cakes bake more evenly.

“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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