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Dessert

Spice Layer Cake

A moist cake flavored with cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and raisins, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 Layer 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and cocoa powder if using.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins or currants.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before serving.

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. 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the cake and adds moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Raisins or currants
Add chewy bursts of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, so stirring only until just combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, raisin, clove, cinnamon. 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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