Name: Eccles Cakes or Tarts
Ingredients: one cupful of clean; one cupful of granulated sugar; one finely chopped lemon peel; lemon peel; ginger; cinnamon

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eccles Cakes or Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Combine currants, sugar, lemon peel, ginger, and cinnamon; mix well.

Shape the pastries

Prepare short-crust or puff pastry, roll to 1/4 inch thick, and cut into 2-inch squares.
Place a teaspoon of the currant mixture in the center of each square; fold edges over to enclose the filling, leaving a small opening.
Flatten the pastries with your hand, turn them over (folded part down), and roll out with a rolling pin until the filling breaks through.

Bake

Place the pastries on baking pans, cut a few slashes across the top with a knife, wash the tops with milk or milk and egg, and dust with sugar.
Bake at 375°F until nicely browned.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

81Calories

1 gProtein

0 gFat

23 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon Peel	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Wilcox, Estelle Woods, comp. 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. See the original page.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Currants (in the method): Provide the sweet, chewy fruit filling that defines the pastry.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown when dusted over the pastry.
Lemon peel: Adds bright aromatic citrus flavour that balances the sweet filling.
Ginger: Adds warm, spicy aroma to the currant filling.
Cinnamon: Adds warm sweet spice aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling until the filling breaks through. Rolling too little leaves the filling enclosed and the pastry thick, while over-rolling tears the thin dough and lets currants burn on the pan. Flattening gently just until the filling shows keeps the pastry even and the filling sealed enough to bake well.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, cinnamon):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Orangefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, cinnamon. 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.

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Ginger Cookies213 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

Lemon Sherbet103 recipes

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Eccles Cakes or Tarts