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Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A moist cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, sour cream, baking soda, spices, and blackberry jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

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.

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

  3. Stir in the flour, sour cream, baking soda, and spices.

  4. Fold in the blackberry jam.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let cool and spread with icing.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and jam to help the cake rise.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit flavor, sweetness, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before the next keeps the butter and sugar emulsified and holding air. Adding them all at once can cause curdling and a denser, less even cake.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, cream, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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