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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with currants, raisins, wine, brandy, spices, and a powdered sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Black Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit and spices

  1. Pick, wash, and drain the currants, then spread them out to dry.

  2. Remove pits from the raisins and cut them in half.

  3. Dredge the dried currants and raisins with flour.

  4. Mix the ground cinnamon, mace, and grated nutmeg in a cup.

  5. Combine the white wine, brandy, and rose water in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour into one bowl and the powdered sugar into another.

  2. Cut the butter into the sugar and cream them together.

  3. Beat the eggs until thick and smooth, then gradually mix them with the butter and sugar, alternating with the flour.

  4. Add the fruit, spices, and liquor, stirring well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered tin pan and bake in a moderate oven (350°F) for at least four hours.

  2. Let the cake cool in the oven overnight.

  3. The next morning, dredge the outside with flour and wipe it with a towel to help the icing stick.

  4. For icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually mix in the powdered sugar until thick and smooth.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, butter traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Flour provides the structure that holds the fruit and batter together as the cake bakes.
Currants
Dried currants add concentrated sweetness and chewy body throughout the cake.
Raisins
Raisins add sweetness and moist, chewy pieces throughout the cake.
White wine
Wine adds acidity and moisture, and its liquid helps the fruit soften in the batter.

The step that matters

Long, slow baking. Baking at a moderate temperature for at least four hours lets the dense, fruit-heavy batter set through the centre without the outside burning. Cooling it slowly in the oven afterward helps prevent cracking and keeps the crumb moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, brandy):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, brandy. 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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