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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, Madeira wine, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar until very light.

  3. Stir in one-fourth of the flour.

  4. Whisk the eggs until thick, then add the eggs gradually.

  5. Add the remaining flour in two parts, beating well after each addition.

  6. Mix in the Madeira wine, brandy, and spices.

Add the fruit

  1. Combine all the fruit.

  2. Add one-third of the fruit at a time, beating well.

Bake

  1. Butter the pan and line it with white paper.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth the surface with a knife.

  3. Bake for about four 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture, chew, and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps keep the cake moist.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs gradually. Adding eggs slowly lets the emulsion form properly. If they go in all at once, the batter can curdle and trap less air, leading to a denser cake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, madeira wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, raisin, madeira wine, 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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