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Dessert

Leopard Cake

A layered cake made with egg whites, egg yolks, sugar, flour, butter, milk, baking soda, spices, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Leopard 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 the batters

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

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 2 cups flour, ½ cup butter, 1 tablespoon milk, and ¼ teaspoon baking soda.

  4. Combine the egg whites with the mixture and set aside.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup molasses, 2 cups flour, ½ cup butter, and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

  6. Add cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, currants, and citron to the yolk mixture.

Bake

  1. Layer the two mixtures in a pan and bake 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture and help bind the spiced batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and batter to help the cake rise.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy bursts of texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Layering the two mixtures in the pan. The light whipped-white batter and the dense spiced yolk batter are very different in weight. Layering them gently keeps the whipped batter from deflating and helps the two layers bake evenly.

Swap the clove

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

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

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