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Dessert

Black Cake

A dense fruit cake made with currants, raisins, citron, spices, Madeira wine, brandy, rose water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the spices with the liquors.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.

  5. Gradually mix in the fruit and liquors alternately.

  6. Chop the fruit and add enough flour to make the mixture dry.

Bake and cool

  1. Prepare a cake pan with greased paper on the sides and bottom.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

  3. Bake for about 3.5 to 4 hours.

  4. Let the cake cool in the pan overnight, covered with a heavy cloth.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps cream the butter to hold air.
Currants
Provide chewy fruit pieces and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the fruit mixture.
Madeira wine
Adds aromatic depth and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the fruit. Enough flour must be added so the fruit-heavy mixture is dry enough to hold together and not sink or turn soggy. Too little flour lets the fruit sink during the long bake, while too much makes the cake dense and dry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, cinnamon, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, cinnamon, allspice. 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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