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Dessert

Black Cake for Weddings

A fruit cake made with butter, flour, sugar, citron, raisins, eggs, spices, wine, brandy, and baking soda, baked for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Black Cake for Weddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat the eggs separately.

  3. Add the eggs to the mixture.

  4. Soak the spices in the brandy overnight.

Mix the batter

  1. Stir in the brandy.

  2. Stir in the wine.

  3. Stir in the citron.

  4. Stir in the raisins.

  5. Rub the fruit in flour.

  6. Add the fruit to the mixture.

  7. Dissolve the baking soda in a portion of the wine.

  8. Mix the dissolved baking soda into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake for 4 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Raisins
Add moisture and sweetness to the dense fruit cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to help the cake rise and brown.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a portion of the wine. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it is mixed in, so it spreads evenly through the batter. Unevenly distributed baking soda can leave soapy or bitter pockets and uneven rising.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

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