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Dessert

Blackberry Layer Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, blackberry jam, spices, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Blackberry Layer 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the blackberry jam, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and sour milk.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or 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.

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

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

  5. Blackberry + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavour throughout the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which can make the cake tough. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

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