Skip to main content
Dessert

Queen Black Cake

A dense fruit cake with almonds, pecans, currants, raisins, figs, spices, chocolate, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Queen Black 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the beaten eggs gradually, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the molasses and rose water.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, spices, and grated chocolate.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the almonds, pecans, currants, raisins, figs, and citron.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 2 to 2.5 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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lightness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a light texture.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and moisture, and give the cake body.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep colour and a rich, slightly acidic sweetness.

The step that matters

Add the dry ingredients gradually and mix until just combined. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, making the cake tough and dense. Stopping once combined keeps the crumb tender in this heavy batter.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, pecans, butter, flour, sugar, nutmeg, egg. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipes