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Dessert

Swiss Honey Cakes

A sweet cake made with honey, almonds, and spices, rolled into dough and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Swiss Honey Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the shortening, add the honey, and stir well; remove from heat and cool.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemon.

  3. Sift the baking powder, soda, and nutmeg into 1 cup of flour.

  4. Mix this with the liquid and add enough more flour to make a dough that can be rolled.

Shape and bake

  1. Chill the dough, roll it out to ½ inch thick, and cut into squares, diamonds, or circles.

  2. Sprinkle with finely chopped nuts and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and holds the dough together.
Shortening
Adds fat for a tender, short texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cakes rise and lighten.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the liquid mixture into a rollable dough.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma from the rind and juice.
Nutmeg
Adds warm spice aroma.

The step that matters

Add the flour gradually until the dough can be rolled. Honey makes the mixture sticky and wet, so flour must be added until the dough is firm enough to roll. Too little leaves it hard to handle, and too much makes the cakes dry and tough.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, honey, nutmeg, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, honey, nutmeg, 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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