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Baking

Pork Cake

A sweet and savory baked loaf made with salt pork, molasses, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pork Cake

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pork 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 batter

  1. Chop the salt pork finely and boil it in 1 to 2 pints of water for 2 minutes.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the boiled pork, molasses, eggs, raisins, sugar, and baking soda.

  3. Gradually add the flour, mixing until well combined.

  4. Add cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift and lighten the cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness to the cake.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps browning during baking.

The step that matters

Baking soda in the batter. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the molasses here, to release gas and lift the batter. Mixing it in and baking promptly keeps that lift from fading.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses, egg, raisin, sugar, flour, cinnamon. 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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