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Dessert

Blackberry Layer Cake

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

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 Layer 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.

Make the batter

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

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

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

  4. Stir in the blackberry jam, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and sour cream.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

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

Bake and finish

  1. Divide the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the layers cool before frosting with caramel 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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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 bakes and sets.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy texture when creamed.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once it is mixed with liquid and heated.
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

Mix the flour in until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, overmixing develops gluten, which can make the layers tough and dense instead of tender.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Blackberrythe original

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