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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, blackberry jam, sour cream, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs and blackberry jam, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the sour cream.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30‑35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before frosting with the reserved egg whites.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat coating the flour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture and flavor to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and jam to lift the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.

The step that matters

Alternating the dry ingredients with the sour cream. Adding dry ingredients in portions and alternating with the sour cream keeps the batter smooth and emulsified, and avoids overmixing that would toughen the crumb.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, blackberry, butter, cream, cinnamon, 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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