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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet pork cake made with pork fat, raisins, molasses, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Pork Cake

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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the raisins, citron, sugar, molasses, and baking soda.

  3. Mix well and add flour to thicken the batter.

  4. Season with nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan and bake until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork fat
Provides richness and a tender, moist crumb as it melts into the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the cake its structure as it sets.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Add flour to thicken the batter. Flour starch and proteins set with heat to give the cake its structure. Too little flour leaves the batter loose and the cake may not set firmly, while too much makes it dense and dry.

“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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