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Dessert

Black CAKE-i

A dense fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, spices, and alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black CAKE-i

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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until light.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Add the fruit, reserving a little flour to sprinkle over it.

  6. Stir in the spices and liquor.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a porcelain baking dish.

  2. Bake for three 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten its structure as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit suspended in the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.
Currants
Add moisture, chewiness and tart sweetness throughout the cake.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, creamed texture with butter.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that lightens the batter. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from deflating, so the cake bakes up lighter.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, raisin, egg, wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, raisin, egg, wine, 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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