Skip to main content
Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet loaf cake made with coffee, pork, molasses, sugar, spices, flour, raisins, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pork Cake

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pork 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 the batter

  1. Pour the boiling coffee over the chopped salt pork and let it sit.

  2. In a bowl, beat the baking soda into the molasses until light.

  3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, cloves, nutmeg, citron, flour, raisins, and nuts.

  4. Add the molasses mixture and the pork mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased loaf pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep caramel flavour to the cake.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the cake moist and rich as it bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Beating the baking soda into the molasses. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the molasses, to release gas and lighten the batter. Beating it in until light helps distribute the gas evenly before the batter is baked.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, pork, sugar, molasses, nutmeg, flour, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, pork, sugar, molasses, nutmeg, flour, raisin. 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes