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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet pork cake made with chopped pork, water, sugar, currants, molasses, raisins, spices, egg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Pork Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

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.

Prepare

  1. Chop the pork as finely as possible.

  2. Pour boiling water over the pork.

Make the batter

  1. Add brown sugar, currants, molasses, raisins, baking soda dissolved in hot water, cinnamon, cloves, and egg to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a long shallow baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Fresh fat pork
Adds richness and moisture, and melts to give the cake a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda needs moisture and an acid such as molasses to react and produce gas. Dissolving it fully before mixing spreads it evenly, so the cake rises uniformly instead of forming pockets or dense spots.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove, egg. 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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