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Dessert

Lincoln Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, egg yolks, sour cream, baking soda, spices, flour, rose water, citron, and folded egg whites.

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

Lincoln 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Rub together the sugar and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and mix in the sour cream.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water and stir it into the mixture.

  5. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, sifted flour, rose water, and the dredged citron.

Bake

  1. Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the batter into square shallow pans and bake until golden.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while beaten whites lighten it and help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that give a tender crumb and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for lightness.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously or letting them deflate before baking leads to a dense, flat cake.

“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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