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Dessert

Jam Sandwich

A cake with jam spread between two layers, made from eggs, milk, flour, sugar, baking powder, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Sandwich

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. Break the egg into a bowl and add the milk.

  2. Mix in the flour and sugar until combined.

  3. Just before baking, add the baking powder and your chosen flavoring.

Bake and assemble

  1. Butter a flat baking tin and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until ready.

  3. Once cooled, spread jam between two cakes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg
Gives the batter structure and helps bind it as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter mixes smoothly.

The step that matters

Add the baking powder just before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets liquid, so adding it just before baking keeps the batter's rise strong in the oven instead of fading while it waits.

“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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