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Dessert

Jam Cake

Jam cake is a sweet baked dessert made with brown sugar, butter or lard, sweet milk, eggs, jam, chocolate, cinnamon, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Jam 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter or lard.

  3. Add the sweet milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the jam, chocolate, cinnamon, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown.
Butter or lard
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add tenderness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the cake structure as it sets.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sifted flour, mixing until smooth. Mixing flour in gently and only until smooth keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

“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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