Skip to main content
Dessert

Jam Cake

A cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, sour milk, blackberry jam, flour, spices, and baked, topped with a sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs (reserving the whites of 2) and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sour milk, blackberry jam, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just combined.

Bake and ice

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

  2. For the icing, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the heaping cup of sugar, continuing to beat until glossy.

  3. Spread the icing over the cooled cake.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Blackberry + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Blackberry + allspicetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + blackberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together315 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and carries flavor through the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, moist crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and jam acidity to lift and lighten the batter.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and color to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour. Mixing only until combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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

More jam cake recipes

Blackberry 36Strawberry 8Almond 3Raspberry 3 See all 52 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesBlackberry JellyBlackberry Jelly34 recipes