Name: Pork-cake
Ingredients: 3 eggs; 1¼ cups sugar; 1 cup fat salt pork, chopped; ⅓ cup molasses; ½ teaspoon allspice; ½ teaspoon cloves; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; 2 cups flour; 2 cups chopped raisins

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the eggs separately and mix with the sugar.
Wash and chop the fat salt pork finely.

Mix and bake

Combine the pork with the molasses, spices, flour, and raisins, and mix well.
Pour into a shallow pan.
Bake for 1 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.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Eggs: Provide structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour: Forms the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps browning during baking.
Fat salt pork: Adds fat and richness, keeping the cake moist and flavourful.
Molasses: Adds moisture, sweetness, and a deep, dark flavour.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and sweetness throughout the cake.

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Clovethe original
Gingerfits less well
Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pork, molasses, allspice, cinnamon, flour. 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.