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Dessert

Spice Cakes

A spiced cake made with molasses, sugar, butter drippings, spices, baking soda, and sour milk, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Spice Cakes

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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Blend and warm the molasses, sugar, and butter drippings or lard.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda and salt in a little sour milk or water.

  4. Sift the flour with the spices and add 1 teaspoon of spice for each cup of flour.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat the eggs until light and mix all ingredients quickly.

  2. Get the mixture into the oven as quickly as possible.

  3. Bake in sheets, loaves, or cups. If adding fruits, dredge them in flour before mixing.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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 holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and lift when beaten light, helping the cake set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Butter drippings or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavor.

The step that matters

Get the mixture into the oven quickly. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk, so delay lets much of the lift escape before the batter sets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, clove, molasses, sugar, butter, milk. 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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