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Dessert

Pork Fruit Cake

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Pork Fruit 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 pork

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped pork and boiling water. Let it sit until cool.

Make the batter

  1. Add sugar, molasses, raisins, citron, grated nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, baking soda, and ginger to the mixture.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Chopped pork soaked in boiling water becomes tender and adds moisture and savory body to the cake.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweetness that helps the cake brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as the cake sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts and lightens the cake.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Let the pork cool before mixing. Adding baking soda to a mixture that is still very hot can react too quickly and lose lift; letting the pork cool first keeps the leavening working steadily in the batter.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applefits less well

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