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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes are sweet, batter-like cakes fried in lard.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and beat again.

  3. Mix in the sweet milk and melted butter.

  4. Sift the flour with baking powder, salt, and mace, then add to the mixture.

  5. Beat thoroughly and add enough flour to make a stiff dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry the shapes in deep hot lard until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 dough and add richness and structure.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure that makes the dough stiff enough to roll and cut.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cakes rise and turn light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the hot fat.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the shapes in deep hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, hot fat sears the surface quickly so the interior cooks evenly and stays light.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Macethe original

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