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Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A moist cake flavored with blackberry jam and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the sour cream and blackberry jam, mixing well.

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

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

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the cakes cool completely before icing.

  3. Ice the cake all over and let it stand for one week before serving.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten whites add lift and an airy, tender crumb to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake richness and a tender texture.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, keeping the crumb soft and tender.
Blackberry jam
Supplies fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavor throughout the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and jam to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whites by overmixing removes the air that gives lift, so the cake bakes up dense. Gentle folding keeps the foam intact.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, blackberry, flour, sugar, 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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