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Dessert

Jelly Cake

A light cake with a lemon-flavored jelly filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Jelly 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, baking powder, flour, and cornstarch until smooth.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold into the batter.

  6. Divide the batter evenly among three greased cake pans.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine ½ pint milk, ½ cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons cornstarch in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the milk mixture.

  3. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  4. Once cooled, flavor the filling with lemon.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Spread the jelly or lemon filling between the layers of cake.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Egg whites add lift and structure, while yolks enrich the batter and custard.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the layers rise as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling and softens the cake crumb.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling over boiling water. Stirring constantly keeps the milk and egg mixture from scorching or forming lumps, and the starch thickens it evenly as it heats.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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