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Dessert

Blackberry Cake

A layer cake made with butter, sugar, sour milk, eggs, vanilla, spices, baking soda, flour, and blackberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Blackberry 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sour milk, beaten eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda. Mix well.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour until just combined.

  5. Gently fold in the blackberries, being careful not to mash them.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into two greased layer cake pans.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Let the cakes cool completely before icing.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the crumb.
Blackberries
Add fruit flavor and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the blackberries. Cooked blackberries are soft and can break down easily; folding gently keeps them in pieces and avoids streaking the batter purple. Overmixing after the flour is added also toughens the cake, so stir only until combined.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, vanilla, cinnamon, flour. 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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