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Dessert

Marguerites, or Jelly Cakes

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, spices, rose water, and jam, topped with a powdered sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Marguerites, or Jelly Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Rub together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until thick, then sift in the flour and spices.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, and rose water, and stir well.

  4. Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thick and cut out cakes.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake the cakes for a few minutes until pale brown.

  2. Once cooled, spread peach jam or marmalade on each cake.

Ice and set

  1. Beat the reserved egg whites until light, then mix in powdered sugar to thicken.

  2. Flavor the icing with lemon or rose water and spoon it onto each cake, creating a peak.

  3. Return the cakes to the oven briefly to set the icing.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the dough richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cut-out cakes together.
Eggs
Yolks bind the dough, and whites whipped into the icing give it lift and a light set.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps it turn light and fluffy.
Peach jam or marmalade
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the baked cake and the icing.

The step that matters

Baking the cakes to pale brown. Pulling them too early leaves the dough raw and doughy, while overbaking dries them out and darkens the surface, so watching the colour matters.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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