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Dessert

Water Cakes with Carraway Seeds

A simple cake made from powdered sugar, flour, water, egg whites, and caraway seeds, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Water Cakes with Carraway Seeds

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.

Make the paste

  1. Mix the powdered sugar and sifted flour on a clean surface.

  2. Add the water and egg whites, then mix until you have a fine paste.

  3. Incorporate caraway seeds to your preference.

Shape

  1. Roll the paste out thinly on the surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes using a tin cutter.

  3. Place the shapes on a buttered sheet of paper.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until just changed in color.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg 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

Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine, tender texture to the paste.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin, cut shapes together.
Egg whites
Bind the paste and help it set firm as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking until just changed in color. A slow oven dries and sets the shapes gradually with little browning. Sugar and flour brown quickly at higher heat, so pulling them once the color has just shifted keeps them pale and prevents bitterness.

“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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