Name: Eggless Spice Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 cup sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 cups all-purpose flour

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Stir in the chopped raisins, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add it to the mixture.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts and aerates the batter.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavors.
Sour milk: Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Sugar: Creams with the butter to trap air and adds sweetness and browning.
Chopped raisins: Add moisture and chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour. Once flour is added, gluten begins to form, so mixing only until combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

Cardamomfits better
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerfits less well

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