Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicious Black Cake

A rich fruit cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, spices, wine, brandy, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Delicious Black Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar and spices.

  2. Cream the butter and add it to the yolk mixture.

  3. Whip the egg whites until very light.

  4. Fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture alternately with the flour.

  5. Add the brandy and wine.

  6. Fold in the fruit.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter and whites, whipped separately, lighten the cake's crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter texture.
Raisins
Dried fruit that adds chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and its liquid moistens the batter.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped egg whites into the batter. Whites hold air only when whipped to a light foam; overmixing or deflating them while folding in the flour makes the cake dense instead of light.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipes