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Dessert

Chocolate Spice Cake

A chocolate cake flavored with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Chocolate 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.

Make the cake batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 5 eggs and 1 egg white until well combined.

  3. Add 1 cup of sugar and beat well.

  4. Mix in ½ cup of melted butter.

  5. Stir in 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves, along with 4 teaspoons of chocolate.

  6. Add ½ cup of water and mix thoroughly.

  7. In another bowl, combine 2 heaping cups of flour and 1½ teaspoons of baking powder.

  8. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, then flavor with 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

  9. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil 1 cup of water with sugar until it becomes stringy.

  2. Beat 4 egg whites until stiff, then pour the syrup over them and beat well.

  3. Mix in 1 tablespoon of melted butter and 4 teaspoons of chocolate.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the filling between the cake layers and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and structure, helping the batter bind and set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks in the filling, giving it a light, airy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake moist and tender.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites and syrup for the filling. Hot syrup must be poured in slowly while beating so the whites cook gently and form a stable, glossy foam rather than deflating or scrambling.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Winter savoryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, 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.

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