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Dessert

Cinnamon Cakes

A cake made with eggs, rose water, sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cinnamon Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs with the rose water.

  2. Add the sifted sugar and pounded cinnamon.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and stamp it into small cakes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Rose + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together892 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 dough and add moisture and richness to the paste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Flour
Provides structure so the paste can be rolled out and hold its shape.
Cinnamon
Gives the cakes their main aroma and warm flavour.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Dough rolled too thick stays moist in the centre and bakes unevenly, so thin, even cakes are needed for them to turn golden all the way through.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rose, 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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