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Dessert

Cincinnati Cake

A moist cake made with fat salt pork, molasses, brown sugar, raisins, and spices, baked slowly.

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

Cincinnati 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over the chopped fat salt pork and let it stand until nearly cold.

  2. Add brown sugar, molasses, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, citron, brandy, baking powder, and flour. Mix well until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for two and a half hours.

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. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat salt pork
Adds richness and moisture to the crumb as it melts during baking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Let the pork cool before mixing. The pork must be nearly cold before adding the other ingredients; if it is still hot, it can melt the fat unevenly and disturb the batter, while baking powder loses lift if the batter is overheated before baking.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sugar, molasses, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, brandy):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, brandy. 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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