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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet bread made with pork, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped pork, hot water, brown sugar, and molasses.

  2. Mix in the flour, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon until well combined.

  3. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two loaf pans.

  2. Bake for 1½ 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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 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

Pork
Provides moisture and richness, and its fat helps keep the crumb tender.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking too briefly leaves the center wet and gummy, while overbaking dries the crumb. A toothpick inserted in the center shows whether the structure has fully set.

“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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