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Preserve

Rock Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, lard, currants, sultanas, candied peel, egg, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Rock 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 ↓

Rock Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. Rub the lard and butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Add the sugar, currants, sultanas, and chopped candied peel; mix well.

  3. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then stir into the dry ingredients.

Bake

  1. Butter a baking tray and drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto it, keeping them spaced apart.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and carrying flavour.
Lard
Adds tenderness and a short, crumbly texture to the cakes.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure and moisture as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise and become lighter.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls spaced apart. The mixture is stiff and spreads only slightly, so leaving space keeps each rock cake a distinct shape and lets the heat reach the centre evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

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