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Lobster Cake

A baked cake made from boiled lobster meat, ham, marrow, eggs, bread, mace, cayenne, salt, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,050 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Lobster 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.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the lobster meat with raw ham, beef marrow, egg yolks, soaked bread, mace, Cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Color the mixture with lobster spawn.

Bake

  1. Line a mold with bacon slices and press the mixture into it.

  2. Cover with bacon and the mold cover.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool, then turn it out of the mold and remove the fat.

  2. Serve the cake modeled or plain with savory jelly around.

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. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lobster meat
Forms the main body of the cake and gives it its flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cake from drying out.
Bread soaked in cream
Adds moisture and softness, lightening the texture of the pounded mixture.
Lean raw ham
Adds savory depth and body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pounding the mixture into a smooth, evenly combined paste. Thorough pounding breaks the lobster and ham fibers into a uniform mixture so the egg yolks can bind it evenly. Uneven mixing leads to a crumbly or patchy set once baked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lobster, ham, beef, egg, bread, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lobster, ham, beef, egg, bread, cream. 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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