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Dessert

Black Cake

A rich fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, raisins, currants, citron, figs, eggs, Madeira wine, brandy, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Black Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and brown sugar until very light.

  2. Stir in ¼ of the flour.

  3. Whisk the eggs until stiff and add them gradually.

  4. Add the remaining flour, half at a time, beating well after each addition.

  5. Mix in the Madeira wine, brandy, and spices.

  6. Combine all the fruit and add it one third at a time, beating well.

Bake

  1. Butter and line a pan with white paper.

  2. Pour in the mixture and smooth the top with a knife.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about four hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Currant + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Whisked to stiffness and folded in to lighten the batter and add structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together as the cake bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown during the long bake.
Raisins
Add moisture, sweetness and chew to the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps keep the cake moist.

The step that matters

Adding the fruit in thirds while beating. Beating after each addition distributes the heavy fruit evenly through the batter. Adding it all at once can leave it sinking or clumped, so the cake bakes unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, raisin, fig, egg, madeira wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, raisin, fig, egg, madeira wine. 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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