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Dessert

Variety Cake

A spiced cake made with sugar, flour, sweet milk, butter, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Variety 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. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk.

  3. Add the cream of tartar to the flour.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the milk mixture with the flour mixture.

  2. Stir in the cinnamon, ground cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acid that reacts with the baking soda, contributing to lift and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter sets in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter while adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and combined before baking so it reacts evenly with the acid in the batter. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter or soapy patches and uneven rising.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, butter, egg, cream, 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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