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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet pork cake made with pork, sugar, molasses, spices, raisins, flour, eggs, baked until done.

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

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 ↓

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, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, raisins, and baking soda.

  3. Gradually add the flour and mix until well combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

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

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 + nutmegtop 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 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

Chopped pork
Provides the meat base that is dissolved into the batter, adding moisture and savoury body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a crumb as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the cake.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness with a toothpick. A dense, sugar- and molasses-rich batter browns quickly on the outside while the centre can stay wet. Checking that a toothpick comes out clean confirms the middle has set before the cake is removed.

“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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