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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with flour, sugar, spices, brandy, sour cream, butter, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks, well beaten, and mix in the flour, spices, and brandy.

  3. Mix the baking soda with the sour cream and stir it in.

  4. Beat the egg whites to a froth and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the whipped whites lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a froth. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so folding gently keeps the batter light and helps the cake rise evenly.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, cinnamon, clove, brandy, cream, butter. 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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