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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with blackberry jam, sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and sour milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice.

  4. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  5. Fold in the blackberry jam gently.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, spread with additional jelly if desired.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter while also adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it traps air for lift.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter crumb.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that keeps the crumb tender.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and a deep berry flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and mix until combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, so overmixing makes the cake tough and dense. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour. 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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