Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Jelly Cake. No. 2
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream together the powdered sugar and butter until light.
Gradually stir in the beaten eggs and sifted flour alternately.
Add the grated nutmeg and rose water, mixing well.
Bake the layers
Butter a circular tin plate and place it on a griddle or in the oven.
Pour a dipper of batter into the plate and bake like a buckwheat cake.
Repeat to bake as many layers as desired, placing each on a separate plate.
Spread jelly or marmalade on top of each layer and stack them.
Finish and serve
Trim the edges with a knife and dust the top with powdered sugar.
Cut into triangular slices or pointed diamonds to serve.
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.
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the layers a light, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift when beaten into the batter, setting as the layers bake.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the structure of each thin layer as the batter sets during baking.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the creamed mixture become light and smooth.
- Jelly or marmalade
- Adds sweetness and fruity moisture between the layers.
The step that matters
Baking each layer. Each layer is a thin batter spread on a hot surface and bakes quickly. Too much batter or too low heat makes it thick, pale, or doughy, so keep each pour thin and the heat steady.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour, rose):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, rose. 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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