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Meat Cake

A baked beef cake made with eggs, crackers, milk, sage, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Meat Cake

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Meat 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.

Prepare

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

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped beef, eggs, rolled crackers, milk, sage, salt, and pepper. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter and pour the mixture into it.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2 hours or until cooked through.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the bulk of the cake and provides the main meaty texture and flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the cake together.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the cake hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture, keeping the cake from drying out as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Eggs and meat must reach a safe internal temperature to set firmly. Judging by time alone can leave the centre undercooked, so check that the cake is fully cooked before serving.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, milk, pepper, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, milk, pepper, butter. 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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