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Dessert

Rochester Jelly Cake

A sponge cake flavored with molasses, spices, and raisins, layered with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Rochester Jelly 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, eggs, butter, and milk.

  3. In another bowl, combine flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Combine both mixtures until smooth.

Make and bake the cakes

  1. Divide the batter in half; to one half, add molasses, raisins or currants, spices, and flour.

  2. Pour each mixture into shallow tins and bake until golden.

Assemble

  1. While warm, layer the cakes with jelly in between.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to one batter.

The step that matters

Layering while warm. The cakes are meant to be layered while still warm, so the jelly can soften slightly and bond with the crumb. Once fully cooled, the layers may separate or the jelly may not seat evenly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, cream, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, cream, molasses. 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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