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Dessert

Pork Fruit Cake

A sweet cake made with pork, raisins, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pork Fruit 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

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the chopped pork, chopped raisins, flour, molasses, sugar, eggs, milk or wine, and baking soda, then add the ground cloves, grated nutmeg, and ground cinnamon.

  3. Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let the cake cool 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and batter acids to help the cake rise and lighten.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that also aids browning.
Fat corned pork
Adds richness and fat that keeps the cake moist as it bakes.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined. Baking soda needs to be evenly distributed so it reacts throughout the batter, giving an even rise and crumb rather than dense or uneven pockets.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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

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