Skip to main content
Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A moist cake made with blackberry jam, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 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.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, allspice or cloves, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  6. Stir in the blackberry jam and sour milk until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan or layer pans.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + blackberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Allspice + blackberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and jam to help the cake rise.
Blackberry jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavor and moisture to the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mixing flour with liquid starts gluten development, so stirring gradually and only until combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesBlackberry JellyBlackberry Jelly34 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes