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Dessert

Strawberry Jam Cake

A cake made with strawberry jam, sour milk, and spices, baked and served with boiled icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Strawberry 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and continue beating.

  4. Mix in the strawberry jam.

  5. Add a little of the flour to bind the mixture.

  6. Stir in the sour milk and the remaining flour, beating well.

  7. Add the cinnamon and grated nutmeg.

  8. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a square shallow pan.

  2. Bake for about 35 minutes.

  3. For serving, cover with boiled icing and mark in squares before it cools, placing a ripe strawberry in each square.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in stiff, give the cake lift and a light crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air during beating.
Cake flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise and brown.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently until just combined, then bake promptly.

Swap the strawberry jam

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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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