Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.
Fold in the raisins and flour until just combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,536 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor when creamed with the sugar.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that leavens the cake.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake as it bakes.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Fold in the raisins and flour until just combined. Overmixing flour develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping once the flour is just incorporated keeps the crumb tender.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, cream, clove, cinnamon, allspice):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Lemonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, cream, clove, 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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