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Dessert

Farina Cakes with Jam

A simple cake made from farina, milk, sugar, butter, and eggs, served with strawberry jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Farina Cakes with Jam

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 base

  1. Boil the milk with half of the sugar.

  2. Stir in the farina and cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  3. Mix in the melted butter and eggs.

  4. Pour the mixture into a flat baking dish, about 1 inch thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 10 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove from the oven.

  3. Sprinkle the remaining sugar on top.

  4. Bake again until glazed.

  5. Serve with strawberry jam or jelly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + strawberry jamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Farina
Thickens the milk into a firm, sliceable base as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the top brown and glaze.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the cake.

The step that matters

Cook the farina slowly. Farina must be stirred over gentle heat so its starch swells evenly without scorching or forming lumps. Fully cooked starch gives the set, sliceable body the cake needs.

Swap the strawberry jam

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

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