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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense, moist fruit cake made with flour, sugar, butter, raisins, currants, citron, brandy, molasses, and spices.

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

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. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  2. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, cloves, raisins, currants, and citron.

  3. Add enough molasses to achieve desired moisture and color.

  4. Pour in the brandy and mix until well combined.

Bake

  1. Divide the batter into two large greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 2 to 4 hours, 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. 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, and carries flavor through the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as it bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chew and moisture throughout the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep color and a rich, caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Bake low and long until a toothpick comes out clean. A dense, fruit-heavy batter cooks slowly from the outside in, so the center can stay raw while the edges over-brown. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is fully set.

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.

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