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Dessert

Rochester Jelly Cake

A spiced cake with a jelly filling, baked in two layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the flour and cream of tartar until combined.

  6. Divide the batter in half.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour half of the batter into a small shallow tin.

  2. To the remaining batter, add molasses, raisins or currants, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and flour.

  3. Pour this mixture into another tin.

  4. Bake both cakes until golden brown.

  5. 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 to the crumb as they set.
Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tenderness.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and stabilizes the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to the spiced layer.

The step that matters

Layering while warm. Jelly spreads more easily over warm cake, and the warm layers bond to the filling. Cooling fully first can make the layers stiff and harder to join neatly.

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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