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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with brown sugar, butter, eggs, browned flour, molasses, spices, sweet milk, raisins, currants, citron, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

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

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the browned flour, molasses, cinnamon, mace, cloves, and sweet milk.

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

  6. Combine the baking soda and cream of tartar in a small bowl, then add the mixture to the batter and mix until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to lift the batter.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda for a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through creaming with the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper flavor to the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake for the full 3 hours. A dense, fruit-heavy batter needs long, low heat so the center sets fully without the outside burning. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms it is cooked through before cooling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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