Name: Pork Cake
Ingredients: ½ pound fat pork, finely chopped; 1 pint boiling water; 1 cup molasses; 2 cups sugar; 1 pound currants; 1 pound raisins; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; Flour, as needed

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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

Chop the fat pork very fine.
Pour boiling water over the chopped pork.
Add molasses, sugar, currants, raisins, baking soda, and cinnamon.
Stir in enough flour to achieve a thick batter, similar to pound cake.

Bake

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork: Melts into the batter, adding moisture and richness to the crumb.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise and lighten.
Flour: Provides structure so the batter sets into a sliceable crumb.
Currants: Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Currantthe original

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