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Dessert

Tunbridge Cake

A sponge cake layered with fruit jelly, wine, and meringue, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Tunbridge 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 the cake

  1. Bake a plain sponge cake in a cylinder mold and let it cool.

  2. Cut the cake into thin slices.

Layer and coat

  1. Place the bottom slice on a plate and spread with fruit jelly and 2 tablespoons of wine.

  2. Repeat layering with the remaining cake slices.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gradually add 2 cups of sugar to make a meringue.

  4. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the meringue.

  5. Dust sugar over the meringue and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown lightly.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, slide the cake onto a glass dish and surround it with 1 pint of whipped cream.

  2. Flavor the whipped cream with extract to suit your taste.

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

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

  2. Wine + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Sponge cake
Forms the layered body of the cake and absorbs the jelly and wine.
Fruit jelly
Adds moisture and sweet fruit flavor between the cake layers.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that sets and browns over the top and sides.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it brown and hold its shape in the oven.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, rich, moist texture around the cake.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue must be beaten until stiff and then baked only briefly. Overbaking can make it weep or turn tough, while underbaking leaves it soft and pale.

“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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