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Dessert

Eggless or Spice Cake

A sweet, eggless cake with raisins, spices, and a mixture of shortening, butter, lard, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eggless or 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar, shortening, butter, and lard.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  4. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 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.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed fats hold air for a tender crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat for a soft, tender texture and moist crumb.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, contributing to a rich, tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and moist.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises uniformly rather than in patches.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin. 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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