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Dessert

Drop Cakes

Drop Cakes are small, sweet cakes made with butter, flour, sugar, currants, eggs, rose water, brandy, and sweet wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Drop Cakes

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  3. Mix in the sugar and currants.

  4. Add the eggs, rose water, brandy, and sweet wine to form a paste.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto floured plates.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture into a paste and add moisture and structure.

The step that matters

Dropping spoonfuls onto floured plates. The mixture is a soft paste, so spoonfuls should be evenly sized and spaced so each cake bakes at the same rate and keeps its shape rather than spreading together.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, rose, brandy, wine. 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.

More drop cakes recipes

Rye 35Ginger 25Wheat 9Cornmeal 8Oatmeal 8Chocolate 7 See all 98 →

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