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Dessert

Pork Cake

A sweet cake made with pork, raisins, currants, molasses, brown sugar, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Pork Cake

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 ↓

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. Run the pork through a food chopper.

  2. Pour boiling water over the chopped pork.

  3. Add brown sugar, molasses, raisins, currants, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and cream of tartar (or baking powder). Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour, stirring until combined.

Bake and rest

  1. Pour the batter into a dripping pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  3. Let it age for improved flavor.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Fat pork
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the cake tender as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and promotes browning in the baked cake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, depth of flavor, and a darker color to the cake.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar or molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Dense, fruit-filled batters can stay gummy in the centre if underbaked, while overbaking dries the edges. Check doneness in the thickest part before removing it from the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, raisin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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