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Baking

Jam Cake

Jam Cake is a sweet baked cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, spices, raisins, buttermilk, jam, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Add the egg yolks and then the buttermilk in which the baking soda has been dissolved.

  3. Mix in the spices and jam.

Add the fruit and bake

  1. Fold in the fruit that has been dredged in a little flour.

  2. Optionally, add thinly sliced citron.

  3. Gradually add the flour mixed with baking powder, alternating with the well-beaten egg whites.

  4. Bake in layers in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) or in a loaf.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and lift, with the whites helping the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas and help the cake rise.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and keeps the crumb tender and moist.
Jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and egg whites. Adding the flour and whites gradually and folding gently keeps the air from the beaten whites, so the cake rises lightly instead of turning dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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