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Dessert

One Egg Spice Cake

A spiced cake with raisins made with one egg, butter, sour milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

One Egg Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sour milk and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the flour, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, mixing until smooth.

  6. Fold in the raisins.

  7. Pour the batter into a 4‑inch deep pan.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. For the frosting, squeeze the juice from the lemon and strain it.

  3. Gradually add the confectioner's sugar, beating continuously until creamy.

  4. Spread the frosting on the cooled cake.

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb stay moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spice flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and tenderises the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk and baking soda. Baking soda needs acid to release carbon dioxide, so the sour milk must be combined with it promptly. Mixing it in and baking before the gas escapes gives the cake its lift.

Swap the clove

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

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

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