Skip to main content
Dessert

Small Sugar Cakes of Various Kinds

A small sweet cake made from flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and optional flavorings such as lemon rind, cinnamon, caraway seeds, ginger, or currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 ↓

Small Sugar Cakes of Various Kinds

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mingle the ingredients, working them very small with the fingers, adding half a pound of butter for each pound of flour. If more butter than this proportion is used, the paste will be too soft to permit the addition of the proper number of eggs.

  2. Blend thoroughly with three-quarters of a pound of dry sifted sugar and the grated rinds of two small fresh lemons.

  3. Alternatively, add a dessert spoonful of freshly pounded cinnamon, or one to two ounces of caraway seeds, or a similar proportion of powdered ginger, or three-quarters of a pound of very dry well cleaned currants.

  4. Add a slight pinch of salt with the sugar.

Shape and bake

  1. If making flat cakes, moisten gradually with two to four slightly whisked eggs until a firm paste forms.

  2. Roll the cakes a quarter of an inch thick.

  3. Roll and stamp the paste quickly with a cake tin to prevent it from becoming too lithe.

  4. If dropping onto baking sheets, add an additional egg or more.

  5. Place the cakes about two inches apart as they will spread during baking.

  6. Bake in a slow oven for about 20 minutes.

  7. The cakes should be lightly coloured but baked through.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

311Calories
8 gProtein
17 gFat
36 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
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
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
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 Eliza Acton. 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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
Enriches the paste and gives tender, crumbly texture; too much makes the dough too soft.
Eggs
Bind the paste and add structure, moisture and richness to the cakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown lightly during baking.
Currants
Add sweetness, moisture and fruit flavour as an optional mix-in.

The step that matters

Keep the butter proportion in check. Extra butter softens the paste so it cannot hold the right number of eggs, leaving the dough too loose to roll and stamp cleanly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon, egg, cinnamon, ginger. 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 sugar cakes recipes

Small 6Maple 3 See all 29 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes