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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, blackberry jam, flour, spices, and baking powder.

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 Jam 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).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the blackberry jam and mix well.

  3. Beat the eggs separately and then add them to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the spices and the baking powder dissolved in the cream.

  5. Gradually add the flour and mix until just combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake with white icing in between and on top.

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 the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness, moisture, and flavor to the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar traps air bubbles that expand in the oven and help the cake rise. Under-creaming leaves a dense crumb, while the batter should be mixed only until the flour is just combined to avoid toughness.

Swap the blackberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, 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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