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Dessert

Spice Cake

A baked cake made with butter, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Sift together flour, brown sugar, and Magic Baking Powder.

  2. Rub in the butter until well combined.

  3. Add the milk, seeds, and extracts, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into patty tins.

  2. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Magic baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise in the oven.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter until well combined. Rubbing the butter into the dry ingredients coats the flour and distributes fat evenly, which keeps the crumb tender. Uneven or overworked butter can leave greasy patches or a dense texture.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, caraway, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, caraway, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger. 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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