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Dessert

Jam Cake

A simple cake made with brown sugar, butter, flour, baking powder, cold water, and jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jam 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 batter

  1. Cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, and cold water, mixing until smooth.

  3. Fold in the jam of your choice.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + gooseberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + gooseberrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel-like depth of flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture, and can make the centre slower to set.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Jam adds moisture, so the centre can stay wet even when the edges look done. Testing with a toothpick confirms the crumb has set through, which prevents a gummy, underbaked middle.

Swap the gooseberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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