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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A moist cake flavored with blackberry jam, coffee, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blackberry Jam 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk, strong coffee, egg yolks, and blackberry jam; mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let cool and layer with boiled frosting.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and help the cake rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat for a tender texture and flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Blackberry jam
Adds sweetness, fruity flavour and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the cake light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, coffee, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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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