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Dessert

Pork Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Pork Cake

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 ↓

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. In a large bowl, combine the chopped salt pork and boiling water.

  2. Add the molasses, sugar, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix well.

  3. Stir in the floured raisins.

  4. Gradually add flour until the mixture is stiff.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into long bread pans.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Raisin + flourtop 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift and lighten the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, sweet flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Flour
Builds structure so the batter stiffens and holds its shape while baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory richness that moistens the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture is stiff. Adding flour in small amounts lets you judge the batter's consistency. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, while too little leaves it too loose to hold its shape in the pan.

“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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