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Dessert

Pork Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with ground pork, sugar, molasses, flour, spices, raisins, currants, almonds, citron, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Pork Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grind the pork well.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the ground pork, sugar, molasses, flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and boiling water until well combined.

  3. Fold in the raisins, currants, almonds, citron, and lemon peel.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 4 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dense batter and fruit together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Salt fat pork
Adds richness and fat that keeps the cake moist during long baking.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven. A low, long bake lets the dense batter cook through to the center without the outside burning. Baking too hot can scorch the surface while the middle stays raw.

“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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