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 ↓
Rolled 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and bake the cake
Beat the eggs and sugar until very light.
Gently stir in the flour until just combined.
Pour the batter into shallow pans lined with thin brown paper, spreading it to ½ inch thick.
Bake until done, then let cool for a few minutes.
Finish and roll
Turn the cake out of the pans upside down.
Dampen a soft cloth with cold water and brush over the paper to remove it.
Spread jelly over the cake and roll it up.
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.
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 to trap air, giving the cake its light, airy structure.
- Pulverized sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the beaten eggs hold their lightness.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure when baked.
- Jelly
- Adds sweetness and moisture in the filling that keeps the rolled cake tender.
The step that matters
Gently stir in the flour until just combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender. Stop as soon as no dry flour streaks remain.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.