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Dessert

Cherry Cakes

A fried cherry dessert made by coating cherries in a batter of eggs, wine, water, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour, then frying in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cherry Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine eggs, white wine, water, melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and enough flour to create a batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Take ripe cherries and tie five or six together in a bunch.

  2. Dip the cherry bunch into the batter and fry in hot lard until golden.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon before serving hot.

  4. Serve with cream.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a tender, cohesive coating when fried.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure so it clings to the cherries and crisps as it fries.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the batter, and its liquid thins it for coating.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying, browning the batter to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying the cherry bunches in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady high heat sets the crust quickly and browns it evenly.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, white wine, butter, sugar, flour):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, white wine, butter, sugar, 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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