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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A moist cake made with blackberry jam, sour milk, coffee, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blackberry Jam 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk, strong coffee, egg yolks, and blackberry jam; mix well.

  4. Sift in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg; stir until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and assemble

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake and frost with boiled frosting.

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

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

  2. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the batter and help the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture and help bind the batter.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it adds fat for a tender crumb and flavor.
Brown sugar
Creamed with the butter, it adds sweetness and moisture and deepens the flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that gives the cake its lift. Overmixing when folding deflates them, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, coffee, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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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