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Dessert

Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, sour milk, molasses, wine, spices, pecans, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 the batter

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the sour milk, molasses, and wine.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  7. Fold in the chopped pecans.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and browning to the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

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