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Dessert

Rochester Jelly Cake

A spiced cake with a jelly filling, made from sugar, eggs, butter, milk, flour, spices, raisins, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rochester 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.

Make the batters

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

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

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the flour and cream of tartar until combined.

  6. Divide the batter in half; pour half into a shallow tin.

  7. To the remaining batter, add molasses, raisins or currants, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and flour.

  8. Pour this mixture into another shallow tin.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake both cakes until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat creamed with the sugar.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to lift the cake as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda produces gas for rising.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, sweet flavour to the spiced layer.

The step that matters

Bake both cakes until golden brown. Baking soda and cream of tartar release gas quickly, so the batter must go into the oven promptly and be baked until set. Underbaking can cause collapse or a gummy centre, while overbaking dries the crumb.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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