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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A sweet cake made from flour, butter, powdered sugar, currants, and milk, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Rub three quarters of a pound of butter into two pounds of sifted flour.

  2. Mix in half a pound of powdered sugar and half a pound of currants, washed and dried.

  3. Wet it to a stiff paste with rich milk.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll it out and cut it into cakes.

  2. Lay them on buttered baking sheets and put them into a moderate oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

668Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

By Eliza Leslie. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

Flour and butter 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
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, crumbly texture by coating the flour.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine, tender crumb.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the cakes.
Rich milk (in the method)
Moistens the flour and binds it into a dough that can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Wetting to a stiff paste. Too much milk makes the dough soft and sticky, so the cakes spread and bake up tough. Keeping the paste stiff lets the cut shapes hold their form in the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

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