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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A moist blackberry cake made with butter, sugar, buttermilk, spices, flour, eggs, and blackberry jam.

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.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Add the buttermilk, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and blackberry jam; mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then fold them into the batter.

Bake and fill

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. For the filling, boil 1 cup of sweet milk with 2 cups of sugar and 3 tablespoons of butter until thickened.

  3. Whip the filling until it resembles cream and use it to layer the cake.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + blackberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter, aiding a light texture.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that tenderizes the crumb and reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, buttermilk, clove, nutmeg, 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.

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