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Dessert

Cracker Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, milk, chocolate, spices, cracker crumbs, walnuts, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Cracker 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.

Prepare

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

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

Make the batter

  1. Add the sweet milk and melted chocolate, mixing well.

  2. Stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract.

  3. Fold in the sifted cracker crumbs and chopped walnuts.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for one hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Nutmeg + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  5. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Eggs
Whites beaten to stiff peaks add lift and help set the cake's structure as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure of the cake in place of flour.
Chocolate
Adds deep flavor, moisture, and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold air that makes the cake rise. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates those bubbles, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently and only until combined.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla. 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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