Skip to main content
Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A moist cake flavored with blackberry preserves, sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Blackberry and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 212 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the blackberry preserves and mix well.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  5. Stir in the sour milk, baking soda, and ground cloves.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Blackberry + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together315 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Blackberry + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together522 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Blackberry preserves
Adds fruit flavor, sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and moisture.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk, baking soda, and ground cloves. Baking soda needs an acid to react and raise the batter. Mixing it in gently and then baking promptly keeps the gas bubbles from escaping, so the cake rises well.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against blackberry, sugar, butter, egg, milk. 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

Clove CakeClove Cake53 recipesBlackberry JellyBlackberry Jelly34 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes