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Pork Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pork Cake

Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pork Cake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the chopped pork in the boiling water.

  2. Mix in the currants, flour, baking powder, and molasses until well combined.

  3. Line cake tins with paper.

  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tins.

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. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Currant + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,817 recipes
  3. Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  4. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + porktop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 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

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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