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Dessert

Blackberry Jam Cake

A layered cake made with butter, eggs, sugar, blackberry jam, flour, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the blackberry jam and mix well.

  3. Beat the eggs separately and then add them to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the spices.

  5. Dissolve the baking powder in the cream and add it to the batter.

  6. Gradually add the flour and mix until just combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in layers at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, put white icing between the layers and on top.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and help bind the batter as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking powder in the cream and add it to the batter.. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it is wet, so the batter should be mixed in promptly and not left standing before baking, or the cake may rise less.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, flour, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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