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 ↓
Jelly 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately.
Make the batter
Mix the sugar and egg yolks until creamy.
Sift the flour, corn starch, baking soda, and cream of tartar together.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the sugar and yolk mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
- Whipped whites and yolks provide structure and lift, giving the cake its airy crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Corn starch
- Softens the crumb and makes the cake more tender than flour alone.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that stabilizes the whipped egg whites and helps the cake rise.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb while creaming with the yolks.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg white foam holds the air that lifts the cake. Vigorous stirring knocks out that air, so the cake bakes flat and dense.
“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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