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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with currants, raisins, spices, wine, brandy, rose water, citron, flour, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Black 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.

Prepare the fruit and spices

  1. Pick, wash, and drain the currants, then spread them out to dry.

  2. Pick and stone the raisins, cutting them in half.

  3. Dredge the dried currants and raisins with flour.

  4. Mix the ground cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg in a cup.

  5. Combine the white wine, brandy, and rose water in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour into one bowl and the powdered sugar into another.

  2. Cut the butter into the sugar and cream them together.

  3. Beat the eggs until thick and smooth, then gradually mix them into the butter and sugar, alternating with the flour.

  4. Add the fruit, spices, and liquor, stirring well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pan with straight sides.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for at least 6 hours.

  3. Cool the cake on an inverted sieve.

  4. Ice the cake the next morning after dredging it with flour and wiping it with a towel.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a rich, tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Flour provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a light texture.
Currants
Dried currants add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Dried raisins add sweetness and moist, chewy pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Baking for a long, low bake. A dense, fruit-heavy batter needs a long, moderate bake so the centre sets fully without the outside over-browning. Checking doneness before cooling prevents a gummy middle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, brandy):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, brandy. 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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