Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the cream or sour milk and baking soda, mixing well.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then gradually add the flour until fully combined.
Pour the batter into greased tin pans, spreading it no more than ½ inch thick.
Bake and layer
Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven and let cool on a flat surface.
Once cooled, spread a layer of jelly on top of one cake, then place another cake on top.
Repeat the layering with jelly and cake, keeping the best-looking cake for the top.
Cut into square pieces 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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps give it a light, fluffy texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it traps air that lightens the crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter as the cake sets.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk or cream to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream or sour milk
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
The step that matters
Spreading the batter no more than ½ inch thick. Thin layers bake evenly and set through the center before the outside over-browns. Thicker batter may stay raw inside, so the layers need to be kept thin.
“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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