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Dessert

Custard Sponge Cake with Jam

A layered sponge cake with wine, custard, jam, currant jelly, butter, and sherry, steamed and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sherry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Custard Sponge Cake with Jam

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.

Assemble

  1. Layer wine, custard, sponge cake, and jam in a mold until full.

  2. Finish with a layer of the mixture on top.

  3. Cover the mold tightly.

Steam and brown

  1. Steam in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover to brown the top.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out onto a dish.

  2. Pour warmed currant jelly mixed with melted butter and pale sherry over the cake.

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. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs (in the method)
Not stated in the record; omitted.
Sponge cake
Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up the wine and custard as it steams.
Custard
Sets during steaming to give the cake a moist, tender, creamy texture.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy, fruity glaze when warmed and poured over the cake.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives a smooth glaze.
Pale sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the glaze, balancing the sweetness of the jelly.

The step that matters

Covering the mold tightly during steaming. A tight cover traps steam so the custard and sponge cook through and stay moist. A loose cover lets steam escape, leaving the cake dry or unevenly set.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, butter, sherry):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Grapefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, butter, sherry. 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.

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