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Dessert

Spice Cake

A moist cake flavored with allspice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Spice Cake

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the molasses and sweet milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins.

  7. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then mix them into the batter.

  8. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add it to the batter, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 30-40 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once mixed with the liquids.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in milk before adding it to the batter. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the molasses here, to react and raise the cake. Dissolving it evenly in liquid spreads it through the batter so the cake rises uniformly rather than leaving dense or bitter spots.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, milk, flour, clove, 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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