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Dessert

Best Black Cake

A dense, spiced cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, molasses, currants, raisins, citron, and spices.

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 ↓

Best 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 your oven to 300°F (150°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 brandy and molasses.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  6. Flour the currants, raisins, and citron, then fold them into the batter.

  7. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter cream to a light texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
Large eggs
Bind the batter, add structure, and contribute moisture and richness.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and moisture throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which toughens the crumb. Stir just until no dry flour shows.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, raisin, molasses. 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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