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Dessert

Victoria Sandwich

A jam sandwich made from a sweet batter baked into two cakes and assembled with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Victoria Sandwich

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar until thick.

  2. Add the flour and ground rice, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Pour the mixture into two greased and lined cake tins.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 7 to 10 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a piece of paper sprinkled with castor sugar.

  3. When cold, spread the jam on one piece and place the other on top.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light, lofty structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps whisked eggs hold air when beaten together.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the sponge together after baking.
Ground rice
Gives a finer, more tender crumb than flour alone.
Jam
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and moisture between the two sponge layers.

The step that matters

Mixing in the flour and ground rice. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the eggs and sugar. Overmixing knocks out that air and results in a dense, heavy sponge.

“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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