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Dessert

Black Cake, or Plum Cake

A fruit cake made with flour, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, spices, and wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Black Cake, or Plum Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and spices

  1. Pick the currants very clean, wash them, drain them through a colander, wipe them with a towel, spread them on a large dish, set them near the fire or in the hot sun to dry, placing the dish in a slanting position.

  2. Having stoned the raisins, cut them in half, and when all are done, sprinkle them well with sifted flour to prevent sinking. When the currants are dry, sprinkle them also with flour.

  3. Pound the spice, allowing twice as much cinnamon as mace. Sift it, and mix the mace, nutmeg, cinnamon together.

  4. Mix also the liquor and rose-water in a tumbler or cup.

  5. Cut the citron into slips.

  6. Sift the flour into a broad dish.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the sugar into a deep earthen pan, cut the butter into it, warm it near the fire if too cold, stir butter and sugar to a cream.

  2. Beat the eggs as light as possible.

  3. Stir eggs into butter and sugar alternately with the flour, stirring very hard.

  4. Add gradually the spice and liquor.

  5. Stir the raisins and currants alternately into the mixture, taking care that they are well floured.

  6. Stir the whole as hard as possible for ten minutes after the ingredients are in.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover the bottom and sides of a large tin or earthen pan with sheets of white paper well buttered, and put into it some of the mixture.

  2. Spread on it some of the citron, which must not be cut too small.

  3. Next put a layer of the mixture, then a layer of citron, and so on until it is all in, having a layer of the mixture at the top.

  4. Bake the cake in a baker's oven for four or five hours, in proportion to its thickness.

  5. After baking, let it stay in the oven all night or until it gets quite cold.

  6. Ice it the next day.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

758Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
125 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs trap air and bind the batter, giving the cake its structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Powdered white sugar
Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps give a light texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy body to the cake.
Currants
Add moisture, sweetness and chewy body throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the raisins and currants. Fruit tossed in flour is less likely to sink to the bottom of a heavy batter, so the fruit stays evenly distributed through the cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, egg, nutmeg. 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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