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Dessert

Eggless Jelly Cake

A simple eggless cake made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, sweet milk, sugar, and butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Eggless Jelly Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. In another bowl, combine the sweet milk, sugar, and butter or lard.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Beat all ingredients together until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to produce gas that helps the cake rise and gives a light texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release carbon dioxide, lifting the batter as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown during baking.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.

The step that matters

Beat all ingredients together until well combined. The cream of tartar and baking soda start reacting as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should be mixed thoroughly and baked promptly to keep the gas bubbles that make the cake rise.

“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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