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Dessert

Brunswick Jelly Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, eggs, spices, rose water, and topped with fruit jelly and a whipped egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Brunswick Jelly Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Stir one cup of powdered white sugar and one-half cup of butter together, till perfectly light.

  2. Beat the yolks of three eggs till very thick and smooth.

  3. Sift three cups of flour and stir it into the beaten eggs with the butter and sugar.

  4. Add a teaspoonful of mixed spice (nutmeg, mace and cinnamon) and half a glass of rose-water or wine.

  5. Stir the whole well and lay it on your paste-board, which must first be sprinkled with flour.

  6. If you find it so moist as to be unmanageable, throw in a little more flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread the dough into a sheet about half an inch thick and cut it out in round cakes with a biscuit-cutter.

  2. Lay them in buttered pans and bake about five or six minutes.

Ice and finish

  1. When cold, spread over the surface of each cake a liquor of fruit jelly or marmalade.

  2. Beat the whites of three or four eggs till they stand alone.

  3. Beat into the froth, by degrees, a sufficiency of powdered loaf sugar to make it as thick as icing.

  4. Flavor with a few drops of strong essence of lemon, and with a spoon heap it up on each cake, making it high in the centre.

  5. Put the cakes into a cool oven, and as soon as the tops are colored a pale brown, take them out.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

702Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
111 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 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. Mace + cinnamontop 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

Eggs
Yolks bind the dough and whites whip into a stiff, icing-like topping.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together once baked.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Powdered sugar
Creams with the butter for lightness and sweetens the dough and topping.

The step that matters

Put the cakes into a cool oven, and as soon as the tops are colored a pale brown, take them out.. Sugar and proteins brown quickly, so a cool oven and close watching prevent the tops from scorching before the cakes are set.

Swap the mace

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

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

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