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Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A moist cake made with blackberry jam, sugar, butter, flour, baking soda, eggs, sweet milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Blackberry 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 bowl, cream together the sugar and butter, then add the blackberry jam and mix well.

  2. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the jam mixture alternately with the sweet milk.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add cinnamon and nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps make the cake tender.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic jam to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit flavor, sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture alternately with the sweet milk. Alternating dry and wet additions keeps the batter emulsified and blended without overmixing. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

Swap the blackberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, 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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