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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with flour, dried fruit, molasses, sour cream, spices, and alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Black 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 eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the molasses and sour cream.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  7. Fold in the currants, raisins, citron, and chopped figs.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 to 3 hours, 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Currant + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream to help the cake rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that tenderizes the crumb and reacts with baking soda.

The step that matters

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

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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