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Dessert

Spice Layer Cake

A layered cake flavored with cinnamon and cloves, studded with raisins, baked with a butter and sugar base.

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 ↓

Spice Layer 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the sour cream (or milk) and egg, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves.

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

  6. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake and finish

  1. Divide the batter into two greased cake pans.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before frosting with boiled icing.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + creamtop 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 sets the cake crumb as the batter bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which helps the baking soda react and keeps the crumb tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Stir only until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour, raisin, 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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