Skip to main content
Dessert

Black Cake

A dense, spiced fruit cake made with molasses, raisins, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Black 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the dark brown sugar and butter until smooth.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and molasses.

  4. In another bowl, combine the sifted flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins and citron.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Let cool before serving, with or without sauce.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and trapping air when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set its structure as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Dark brown sugar
Adds moisture, sweetness and a deep caramel flavor that helps browning.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly acidic flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop, so overmixing can make the cake tough and dense. Stop mixing as soon as no dry streaks remain.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cream, molasses, flour, cinnamon. 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

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes