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Dessert

Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, jam, buttermilk, eggs, spices, baking soda, pecans, and optional citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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. 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the jam and buttermilk.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, mixed spices, and baking soda.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  7. Fold in the pecans and citron if using.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let cool and layer with icing of your choice, such as chocolate or caramel.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and binding so the batter holds together as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once its proteins set in the oven.
Jam
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the crumb.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderizing the crumb and activating the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and jam to produce gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes the cake tough and dense.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, buttermilk, 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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