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Dessert

Toronto Pie

A layered cake with raspberry jam, made from a simple batter of sugar, eggs, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and spread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Toronto Pie

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the egg mixture.

  4. Mix until just combined and pour the batter into prepared cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let the layers cool, then spread raspberry jam between them.

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. Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + spreadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + raspberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,262 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour 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 with sugar to trap air, giving the cake lightness and structure.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when beaten with the eggs.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Overmixing the batter after adding the flour develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stopping once the flour is just incorporated keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, spread. 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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