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Dessert

Rochester Jelly Cake

A layered cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, milk, flour, spices, raisins, citron, molasses, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

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 the batter

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the egg yolks and milk. Mix well.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder, then add to the wet mixture.

  6. Divide the batter in half and pour into two square pans.

  7. To the remaining batter, add raisins, citron, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, molasses, and flour.

  8. Pour this mixture into two more square pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake all layers until golden brown.

  2. Layer the cakes with raspberry jam or jelly between them.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites and yolks add structure and richness to the crumb as the cake sets.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and fat for a moist texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while creaming with butter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layers rise and stay light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the darker layers.

The step that matters

Dividing the batter into two kinds. The plain and spiced batters bake differently, so each layer needs to be measured and poured into its pan carefully to keep the layers even and the cake assembling correctly.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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