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Dessert

Mothek Dorchester's Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with raisins, currants, citron, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mothek Dorchester's 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 the fruit

  1. Stone the raisins and pour the brandy over them.

  2. Cover tightly and let sit overnight.

Make the batter

  1. Brown the flour to darken the cake.

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

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

  4. Stir in the browned flour, raisins, currants, citron, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  5. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 to 4 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned flour darkens the cake and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they are beaten in.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with the butter to add sweetness and help give the cake its texture.
Raisins
Soaked in brandy, they add moisture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add moisture, chewiness and tart fruit flavour throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the fruit soak overnight. Soaking the raisins in brandy softens them and lets them absorb liquid, so they stay moist rather than drying out and pulling moisture from the batter during baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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