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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet pork cake made with molasses, raisins, currants, spices, 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: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pork 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Grind the salt pork using a fine cutter.

  2. Pour hot water over the ground pork and stir to blend.

  3. Add molasses and mix well.

  4. Dissolve baking soda in a little water and add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

  6. Fold in raisins and currants.

  7. Gradually add flour until well combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  2. Frost the sides and top as desired.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Adds fat and savory richness that carries the spices through the cake.
Molasses
Provides dark color, moisture, and deep sweetness with a slightly bitter edge.
Baking soda
Reacts with molasses acidity to produce carbon dioxide, helping the cake rise and darken.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy moisture and pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until well combined. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth and lets baking soda react evenly. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, molasses, allspice, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses, allspice, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, raisin. 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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