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Dessert

Pork Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with pork, dried fruit, molasses, and spices, baked for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,070 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Pork Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over the chopped salt pork.

  2. Add baking soda, sugar, molasses, raisins, currants, citron, nuts, coffee, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour. Mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Line a large dripping pan with buttered paper.

  2. Bake for 2 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

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. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

  2. Nuts + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 richness, keeping the cake moist as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and acidic ingredients to lift and lighten the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it sets.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, nuts, coffee, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, nuts, coffee, clove. 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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