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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet baked cake made with pork, brown sugar, molasses, raisins, currants, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Pork Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pork 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.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the chopped pork in boiling water.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the dissolved pork with brown sugar and molasses.

  3. Add the raisins, currants, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, cream of tartar, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat salt pork
Melts into the batter, adding richness and moisture to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar and molasses to lift the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the cake rise and stay light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and contributes acidity to the rise.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the cake and keeps it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Once flour is added, gluten begins to form, so mixing too long can make the cake dense and tough. Stir only until the flour is just combined.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove, cream. 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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