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Dessert

Cincinnati Cake

A sweet cake made with pork, raisins, molasses, spices, and flour, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Cincinnati 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped pork and boiling water.

  2. Add the brown sugar, molasses, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, citron, brandy, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Mix well, then gradually add the sifted flour until fully incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2.5 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.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork
Melts during baking to add richness and moisture to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sifted flour. Adding flour gradually while mixing keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined, so lumps do not form and the crumb bakes evenly. Overmixing once flour is in can toughen the cake by developing gluten.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, brandy. 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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