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Dessert

Fried Cakes

A sweet cake made with sugar, milk, eggs, spices, currants, raisins, molasses, brandy, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

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 ↓

Fried Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix sugar, milk, eggs, baking powder, melted shortening, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Add butter, currants, citron, molasses, raisins, flour, brandy, cloves, and allspice. Mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2 to 3 hours 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set as it bakes, giving it structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chew, and moisture to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. A long bake at 300°F lets heat reach the centre of a dense, fruit-packed batter. The outside can darken before the middle sets, so check for doneness rather than color alone.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, molasses. 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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