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Dessert

Spice Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, flour, spices, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Spice 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 ↓

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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the molasses and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour, spices, and baking soda.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the sour milk.

  7. Fold in the raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45-50 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the cake as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with some acidity.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Alternating the dry ingredients with the sour milk. Adding the flour mixture in portions, alternating with the liquid, keeps the batter smooth and lets the flour hydrate evenly. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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