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Dessert

Black Cake

A spiced fruit cake made with raisins, jam, spices, sour milk, and butter.

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

Black 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the egg yolks and the egg white, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins and fruit jam.

  5. Add the spices, baking soda, and sour milk, mixing until combined.

  6. Gradually add flour until the batter thickens.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into three greased cake pans.

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

  3. Spread with jelly, chocolate, or chopped raisins once cooled.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 richness and structure as the cake sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda for lift.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake as it thickens and bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the crumb.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter thickens. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the batter's consistency, since too much flour makes the cake dense and dry while too little leaves it loose and unable to hold its structure.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Orangefits about as well
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, clove, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, 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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