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Dessert

Scrap-cakes

Cakes made from pork fat scraps, flour, sugar, currants, candied lemon peel, allspice, and water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scrap-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Render the fat

  1. Cut the leaf or fat into small pieces.

  2. Place the pieces in a large dish in a 400°F (200°C) oven. Watch carefully to prevent burning; it will reduce to oil with small pieces floating on top.

Make the dough

  1. Gather the scraps into a basin with the flour. Rub the mixture together well.

  2. Add the currants, sugar, candied peel, and ground allspice. Mix well.

  3. Moisten with enough cold water to form a nice paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thin.

  2. Cut into shapes.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leaf or inside fat of a pig
Melts down to oil that gives the cakes richness and a short, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once moistened with water.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Watching the fat in the oven. If the fat is left too long it can scorch before it fully renders into oil. Scorched fat tastes bitter and spoils the flavour of the dough, so it should be checked closely as it melts.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, lemon, allspice):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, lemon, allspice. 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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