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Dessert

Jelly Cake

A layered cake with a sugar glaze that incorporates egg white and a feather-stage syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together 1 cup sugar and 3 tablespoons melted butter.

  3. Add 3 eggs and 1 cup milk, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add about 2 scant cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 2 teaspoons cream of tartar until thickened.

  5. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

Make the icing

  1. For the icing, combine 1 cup sugar and 4 tablespoons water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches the feather stage.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg white until stiff.

  4. Slowly stir the boiling syrup into the beaten egg white, mixing well.

  5. Add flavoring to the icing and spread it between the cake layers.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set when baked.
All-purpose flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown it while also forming the syrup for the icing.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff foam that gives the icing its light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg white. The syrup must be hot enough to cook the beaten egg white as it is added. Pouring slowly while beating keeps the foam from deflating and gives a stable, smooth icing.

“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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