Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Jelly Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
In a bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until very light.
Beat the eggs lightly and stir them into the butter and sugar, alternating with the flour.
Add the beaten nutmeg and rose water, mixing well.
Bake the cakes
Grease a flat circular tin plate with butter and place it on a griddle or in the oven.
Pour a large ladle-full of batter onto the plate and bake at 400°F (200°C) until set, without turning.
Repeat to bake as many cakes as desired, placing each on a separate plate.
Assemble and finish
Spread jelly or marmalade on top of each cake and stack them, creating a pile of five or six.
Trim the edges with a knife and cover the top with powdered sugar or ice it.
Decorate with nonpareils or sugar-sand if desired.
Cut into triangular slices to serve.
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.
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the heat.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Powdered white sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
- Jelly or marmalade
- Adds sweetness and fruity acidity between the layers and moisture to the stack.
The step that matters
Baking each cake without turning. Each thin cake must set through on one side in the heat before it is lifted or stacked. Turning it too early can tear the delicate batter and leave it dense or uneven.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, rose):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, rose. 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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