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Cousin CLARINDA's Pork Cake

A baked pork cake made with molasses, raisins, coffee, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Cousin CLARINDA's Pork Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pork and molasses base

  1. Boil the chopped pork and molasses with a little water until the pork is thoroughly dissolved.

  2. Cool the mixture.

Mix and bake

  1. Add sugar, cold coffee, baking powder, raisins, spices, and flour, and mix well.

  2. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Pork + coffeetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Dissolves into the molasses base to give the cake its moist, dense body and deep flavour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and turns out light rather than flat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolving the pork fully. If the pork is not thoroughly dissolved in the boiling molasses, small pieces remain in the batter and the texture turns uneven. Boiling until it breaks down completely gives a smooth, uniform base before the other ingredients are added.

“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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