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Dessert

Jam Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, spices, flour, jam, and lemon zest, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 egg yolks and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.

  6. Fold in the jam gently.

  7. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  8. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the filling, beat the egg whites from the remaining eggs with powdered sugar until stiff, then fold in the grated lemon.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding, while whipped whites add lift and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the creamed butter hold air during mixing.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise in the oven.
Jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lightens the cake. Stirring them vigorously or too long deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat crumb, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, clove, flour, cinnamon, 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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