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Dessert

Tea Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, eggs, butter, sugar, leavening, and optional lemon or cinnamon, baked in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tea Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat 1 breakfast cupful butter with 2 teaspoons sugar and a few drops of lemon until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat 3 eggs separately, then add to the creamed butter mixture.

  3. Sift together 2 breakfast cupfuls flour, 1 small teaspoonful carbonate of soda, 2 small teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cinnamon.

  4. Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture until combined.

  5. Add a little thick cream and stir until smooth.

Bake

  1. Butter a tin well and pour the batter into it.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven for an hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

753Calories
20 gProtein
24 gFat
114 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as the batter sets.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the soda, helping the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Folding the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten and toughens the crumb, while the leavening gas is released as soon as the soda and cream of tartar meet liquid. Fold gently and stop once combined.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

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