Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
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 the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and cream until smooth.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the baking soda and lemon or vanilla extract.
If the batter is too thin, add a little more flour.
Bake and assemble
Pour the batter into thin layers on baking sheets.
Bake until golden brown, then cool.
Layer the cakes with your choice of jelly between them.
Frost the top if desired.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acid in the batter to produce gas, helping the thin layers rise and lighten.
- Cream
- Adds fat and moisture, giving the layers a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the layers and promotes browning as the cakes bake.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the thin layers together; added to adjust thickness.
The step that matters
Adjusting the batter thickness. A batter that is too thin spreads into layers that bake unevenly and may be fragile. Adding flour gradually firms the batter so it holds a clean, even layer on the sheet.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg, flour. 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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