Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Separate the egg whites from the yolks.
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Make and bake the cake
Gently stir in the powdered sugar.
Add the egg yolks and flour, mixing lightly.
Pour the batter into a pie plate and bake until golden.
Fill and ice
Once cooled, fill the cake with jelly.
Mix ornamenting sugar with water to create icing and spread it on top.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Whipped whites give the cake its airy structure, while yolks add richness and set during baking.
- Powdered sugar
- Folded into the whipped whites, it sweetens the batter and helps keep the foam stable.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch that sets the batter into a firm crumb as it bakes.
- Jelly
- Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture between the cooled cake layers.
The step that matters
Gently stir in the powdered sugar. Overmixing after whipping the egg whites deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles that give the cake its lift.
“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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