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Dessert

Victoria Sandwiches

A sweet cake sandwich made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, jam, and dusted with caster sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Victoria Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and mix

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Whisk in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Add the flour and then the baking powder, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Grease a shallow cake tin and pour the mixture around the sides.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

Assemble and serve

  1. Turn out the cake and cut it into two slices.

  2. Spread jam over the bottom slice and replace the top.

  3. Cut into quarters, dust with caster sugar, and serve.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the sponge as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps trap air when beaten with the butter.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the sponge its main structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Jam
Adds sweetness and moisture to the filling between the two layers.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, watching closely. A thin sponge can dry out quickly, so overbaking makes the crumb dry. Underbaking leaves the centre dense and gummy because the structure has not set.

“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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