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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake with currants, raisins, citron, spices, and brandy, baked slowly at low heat.

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.

Prepare

  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. Stir in the flour, currants, raisins, grated nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the sliced citron in the batter, alternating with layers of the batter until all is used.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared cake pan.

  3. Bake gradually for 4 to 5 hours, checking for doneness.

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, helping bind the fruit and flour together.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter and fruit together as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor; its alcohol also helps preserve the cake's moisture.

The step that matters

Long, gradual baking. A dense, fruit-heavy batter cooks unevenly if rushed. Low, slow heat lets the centre set without scorching the outside, so check doneness carefully before removing the cake.

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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