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Dessert

Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, sour cream, baking soda, jam, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Stir in the flour, sour cream or buttermilk, baking soda, jam, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon.

  2. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

  3. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Layer the cakes with jelly or frosting, and consider adding chopped raisins or marshmallow filling.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Blackberry + allspicetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavor, and moisture to the crumb.
Sour cream or buttermilk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and keeps the crumb moist.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Jam and dairy add moisture and sugar, so the cake can look set on top while the center is still wet. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the structure has fully set and prevents a sunken, gummy middle.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, cream, nutmeg, allspice. 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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