Skip to main content
Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruitcake made with flour, sugar, butter, raisins, currants, citron, brandy, eggs, spices, and molasses.

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

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

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

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, cloves, and molasses until well combined.

  4. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into greased tin pans or hoops.

  2. Bake for about 2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before serving.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness when creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture, and a dark color to the cake.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually while mixing lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too fast can cause the batter to curdle or separate, which affects the final texture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes