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Dessert

A Very Dainty Swedish Fried Cake

A Swedish fried cake made from a thin dough of eggs, sugar, cream, and flour, fried in lard and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

A Very Dainty Swedish Fried Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs and sugar until almost white.

  2. Add the cream and beat again.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Add enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out very thin.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut the dough into narrow strips.

  2. Make a slit in the center of each strip.

  3. Draw one end through the slit to tie a knot.

  4. Fry in hot lard until very light brown.

  5. Roll in powdered sugar while hot.

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.

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

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

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Yolks and whites give the dough richness and a light, airy structure.
Sugar
Beaten with the yolks for sweetness and to help the mixture turn pale and light.
Thick sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the dough tender and rich.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure so it can be rolled thin and hold its knotted shape.
Lard
Hot frying fat that cooks the dough quickly and browns its surface.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until very light brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the knots absorb grease and turn heavy; if too hot, they brown before the centre cooks through. Steady heat keeps them light and evenly cooked.

“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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