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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried Cakes are sweet dough cakes fried until golden, made with sugar, eggs, butter, buttermilk, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, eggs, melted butter, and buttermilk.

  2. Add baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is similar to cookie dough.

Fry

  1. Shape the dough into cakes and fry in hot oil 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure to the cakes as they set.
Buttermilk or sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lighten the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the mixture into a dough that holds its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is similar to cookie dough. Adding too much flour makes the cakes dense and dry, while too little leaves a sticky dough that is hard to shape and fry cleanly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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