Skip to main content
Dessert

Jam Cake

Jam Cake is a layered cake made with sugar, eggs, butter, sour milk, preserves, spices, flour, baking soda, and cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jam 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs, sour milk, and thick preserves; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and baking soda.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water, then add it to the batter.

  6. Gradually mix in the flour mixture until combined.

Bake and fill

  1. Divide the batter into three layers and bake until golden.

  2. For the filling, boil the cream and sugar until it thickens and can form threads.

  3. Beat the filling until fluffy and spread it between the cake layers.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's layers together.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and preserves to produce gas that lightens the cake.
Thick preserves
Add sweetness, fruit flavour, and moisture to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the batter.

The step that matters

Boil the cream and sugar for the filling. Cooking the cream and sugar to the right thread stage sets the filling. Too little cooking leaves it runny, and too much makes it hard and grainy once cooled.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, milk, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More jam cake recipes

Blackberry 36Strawberry 8Almond 3Raspberry 3 See all 52 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes