Name: Pork Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound salt pork, ground fine; ½ cup boiling water; 1 pound seeded raisins; 1 cup molasses; 2 cups brown sugar; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 ounce ground cloves; 2 ounces ground cinnamon; Flour, as needed

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pork Cake

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the ground salt pork and boiling water.
Add the seeded raisins, molasses, brown sugar, baking soda, ground cloves, and ground cinnamon.
Stir the mixture until stiff, then gradually add flour until the desired consistency is reached.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

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

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerfits about as well

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