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Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, blackberry jam, sour cream, baking soda, spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, and whiskey.

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

Blackberry 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the butter and mix until smooth.

  4. Stir in the flour and blackberry jam.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the sour cream, baking soda, spices, and whiskey.

  2. Combine all mixtures and blend well.

  3. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Cool and layer with icing.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit flavor, sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking too little leaves the centre wet and collapsed, while baking too long dries the crumb. A toothpick test checks that the structure has set through the middle.

Swap the blackberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour, cream, 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.

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