Skip to main content
Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with butter, brown sugar, flour, citron, sour milk, raisins, molasses, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, brandy, baking soda, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spice Cake

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the flour, citron, sour milk, baking soda, raisins, molasses, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, brandy, and baking powder. Mix until well combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and deep sweetness to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift as the cake heats in the oven.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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

More spice cake recipes

Raisin 13Molasses 12Eggless 6Chocolate 5Golden 4Christmas 3 See all 307 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes