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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, spices, currants, raisins, and citron, baked at low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sweet milk and molasses, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and set aside.

  5. In another bowl, combine the egg yolks with the browned flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, mace or nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

  6. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

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

  8. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 3 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter, and yolks add richness and binding.
Browned flour
Provides the structure of the cake and a deep, toasty flavor and dark color.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Creamed with butter for a moist texture and molasses-like sweetness and color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of cream of tartar and other ingredients to help the cake rise.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air from whipping, which gives lift. Folding gently, only until combined, keeps that air from deflating and keeps the crumb light.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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