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Dessert

★ Rich Small Cakes--Cookies

A small cake cookie made with butter, sugar, pastry flour, eggs, vanilla, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

★ Rich Small Cakes--Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 1 cup butter, 1¼ cup sugar, 2⅔-2⅞ cups pastry flour, 2 eggs, vanilla, almond or any desired flavoring.

  2. Alternatively, use ½ lb butter, ½ lb sugar, 10 oz flour.

  3. Cream butter, add sugar, beaten eggs, flavoring and flour.

  4. Let stand in cold place until thoroughly cold.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll dough to ⅜-½ inch thick.

  2. For Jumbles, break off pieces of dough the size of a walnut and make into rings by rolling out rolls as large as the finger and joining the ends; or cut in rings; dust with sugar.

  3. Bake in oven which is moderately hot at first, so cakes will not spread.

  4. Be careful not to burn.

  5. Add more flour if preferred, or use half oil instead of all butter, and brown sugar instead of granulated.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

841Calories
20 gProtein
34 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Pastrynot 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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Provides fat and richness, giving the cakes a tender, crumbly texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
Pastry flour
Forms the structure of the dough, with less gluten for a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure to the cakes.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderately hot oven. Starting moderately hot helps the cakes set before the butter melts out fully, so they hold their shape and do not spread. Watch closely, since sugar browns quickly and can burn.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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