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Dessert

English Tea Cakes

A yeast-based cake with butter, lard, milk, sugar, currants, lemon peel, and eggs, baked in a hot oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

English Tea Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour and salt in a warm dish and make a hole in the centre.

  2. Soak the yeast and stir the sugar into it.

  3. Melt the butter and lard in a pan, and add the milk lukewarm.

  4. Pour these into the yeast, and stir all into the flour with the eggs, well beaten.

  5. Add the fruit and mix all together with the hand till a soft dough.

  6. Set to rise over night.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning divide into small cakes about the size of a pie plate, half an inch thick.

  2. Set these to rise in a warm place from 20 minutes to a half hour.

  3. Bake in a rather hot oven 20 minutes.

  4. When taken from the oven rub butter over the top to glaze.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1022Calories
29 gProtein
39 gFat
140 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

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

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cakes together.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter and lard
Add fat that tenderises the crumb and adds richness.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Milk
Moistens the dough and helps form a soft, pliable texture.
Currants
Add sweetness and fruit flavour distributed through the dough.

The step that matters

Rising the dough overnight and again before baking. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its shape.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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