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Dessert

Fried Cakes

A batter of eggs, sugar, butter, sour milk, flour, leavening, and nutmeg is fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

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 ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and melted butter, mixing until combined.

  3. Stir in the sour milk.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

Make and fry the dough

  1. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until soft.

  2. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as it sets in hot oil.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
Baking powder
Provides additional leavening so the cakes puff while frying.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying spoonfuls of batter in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and oily before the outside sets. Hot oil quickly sets the crust, seals in moisture, and browns the surface evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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