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Dessert

Jam Cake

A baked cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, cream, butter, jam, nuts, raisins, citron, currants, spices, baking powder, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Jam Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the cream and butter, mixing until well combined.

  3. Stir in the jam, chopped nuts, raisins, citron, and currants.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the vanilla.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 3 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake structure as it sets.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy beaten base.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and lightens.
Jam
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, cream, butter, nuts, raisin. 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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