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Baking

Pork Cake

A baked pork cake made with pork, molasses, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, spices, eggs, and flour.

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

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pork Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pour boiling water over the chopped pork and let it cook.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the cooked pork, molasses, brown sugar, baking soda, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, and spices.

  3. Add flour gradually until the mixture is very stiff.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork
Adds richness and moisture to the dense batter as it melts during baking.
Molasses
Contributes dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift and lighten the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the mixture is very stiff. Flour is added to a batter that is already dense and sticky. Adding it gradually lets you judge stiffness, since too much flour makes the cake dry and too little leaves it heavy and wet inside.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, molasses, sugar, egg, raisin, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses, sugar, egg, raisin, 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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