Skip to main content
Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citrus, spices, wine, brandy, and optional molasses, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Black Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and powdered sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks and part of the flour, then mix in the spices.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Add the remaining flour, wine, and brandy, mixing thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Prepare a milk pan by lining the bottom and sides with buttered white paper.

  2. Layer the mixture and dredged fruit in the pan until filled 3 to 4 inches high.

  3. Bake for 4 hours.

  4. For a richer flavor, add Orleans molasses to make the cake darker and moister.

Store and age

  1. Once cooled, wrap the cake in a cloth soaked in brandy or whiskey, keeping it moist for 1 to 4 weeks.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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
Egg yolks and whipped whites give the cake structure and a light crumb.
Butter
Rubbed with sugar, it adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and batter together.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Currants
Add small pockets of tart sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that lifts the heavy batter; under-beaten whites leave the cake dense, while over-beaten whites become dry and collapse when folded.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes