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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A moist cake made with blackberry jam, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, sour cream, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Blackberry Jam 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 bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the blackberry jam and mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Stir in the sour cream or buttermilk.

  6. Finally, add the dissolved baking soda and mix until combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  2. Cool and layer with icing.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Blackberry + allspicetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 bakes and sets.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender, browned crumb.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or buttermilk to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved baking soda. Baking soda needs an acidic partner, here the sour cream or buttermilk, to release gas for rising. Mixing it in last and only until combined keeps the batter's gas and texture intact, so the layers rise evenly.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, nutmeg, egg, allspice, 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.

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