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Dessert

Raspberry Sandwich

A cake sandwich made with a batter of caster sugar, eggs, and flour, baked into rings, split, and filled with raspberry jam diluted with water.

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 ↓

Raspberry Sandwich

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.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk together the caster sugar and eggs until you achieve a proper consistency.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour until fully combined.

  3. Divide the batter into twenty portions and shape into round rings, about 8 inches in diameter.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked through.

  2. Once cooled, split each cake in half with a sharp knife.

  3. Spread raspberry jam diluted with water over the lower half of each sandwich.

  4. Cut each sandwich into 8 slices.

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 + raspberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,262 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 + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

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

Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps trap air when whisked with the eggs for a light crumb.
Eggs
Whisked with the sugar to create structure and lift in the sponge.
Sifted flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes once baked.
Raspberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the cake layers.

The step that matters

Stir in the sifted flour until fully combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the sponge. Stir just until no dry flour remains so the cakes stay tender.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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