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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet cake made with salt pork, raisins, currants, molasses, and spices.

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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the chopped salt pork, cloves, raisins, and currants (or citron). Pour the boiling water over the mixture and let it sit.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, mix the coffee, flour, baking soda, sugar, molasses, and cinnamon. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, mixing well.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven for several hours 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. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and coffee acidity to help the cake rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that helps browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake, adds tenderness, and helps browning and moisture retention.
Salt pork
Adds fat and richness, keeping the cake moist and flavorful as it cooks.

The step that matters

Baking for several hours until cooked through. A dense, fruit-and-fat batter needs long, low heat so the center sets fully without the outside over-browning or drying. Checking for doneness in the center matters because surface color alone can mislead.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, clove, raisin, coffee, flour, sugar, molasses. 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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