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Dessert

Prune Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, lard, eggs, spices, flour, prunes, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Prune 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and lard.

  2. Add the eggs, reserving one white for icing, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped prunes and sour milk.

  6. Finally, add the dissolved baking soda and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes 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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Creams with the sugar to add fat and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter as it sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Prunes
Add moisture, sweetness and a dense, fruity body to the cake.

The step that matters

Add the dissolved baking soda last and mix until smooth. Baking soda needs an acid, here the sour milk, to release carbon dioxide. Mixing it in last and only until smooth keeps those gas bubbles in the batter so the cake rises, while overmixing toughens the crumb.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, flour, milk. 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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