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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet cake made with brown sugar, molasses, spices, raisins, currants, walnuts, and chopped salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Pork Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg. Stir in the molasses and baking soda until well combined.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Pour the boiling water over the chopped salt pork and let it sit for a few minutes. Add the pork mixture to the sugar mixture and stir well.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins, currants, walnuts, citron, and lemon peel.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor against the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the molasses. Baking soda needs an acidic partner like molasses to react and release gas. Stirring it in thoroughly before the flour spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, molasses, egg, pork, flour. 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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