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Ham Cake, Garnished

A baked ham cake made from diced ham, spices, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Ham Cake, Garnished

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 ham

  1. Cut the remains of a ham into small pieces.

  2. Pound the ham very fine in a mortar.

  3. Add all the fat from the ham.

  4. Season with pepper, fine spice, and Cayenne.

Bake and cool

  1. Press the mixture into a mold.

  2. Pour in ½ cup of clarified butter before placing it in the oven.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

  4. Let it cool in the mold overnight.

Unmold

  1. To unmold, place the mold in warm water for a few minutes.

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. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the meat base and its own fat, giving the cake its savory body.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the cake moist as it bakes and cools.

The step that matters

Let it cool in the mold overnight. As the fat cools it solidifies, so the cake sets firm enough to hold its shape and release cleanly from the mold.

“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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