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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. Fold in the currants, raisins, sliced citron, grated nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan, layering with slices of citron as you fill it.

  2. Bake for 4 to 5 hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the rich batter together as it bakes.
Large eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites lighten it and help it set.
Unsalted butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add fat for a tender crumb.
Granulated sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a light, fluffy texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the cake as they soften during baking.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture to the cake as they soften during baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, while stirring vigorously would deflate it and make the cake denser.

Swap the mace

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

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

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