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Dessert

Jelly Sandwiches

A baked cake made from eggs, sugar, flour, optional baking powder and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Jelly Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add the sugar and beat again.

  3. Lightly stir in the sifted flour.

  4. If desired, mix in the baking powder and vinegar.

Bake

  1. Bake in deep round cans 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Beaten eggs trap air, which gives the sponge its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the beaten eggs for a finer crumb.
Flour
Provides the set structure that holds the cake together once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the batter rise.

The step that matters

Lightly stir in the sifted flour. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten and knocks out the air beaten into the eggs, producing a tough, flat cake instead of a light sponge.

“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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