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Dessert

Fried Cakes

A sweet fried dough cake made with buttermilk, sugar, lard, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix sugar and butter thoroughly.

  2. Add beaten eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, and cream of tartar dissolved.

  3. Mix in enough flour to make a slack dough.

Fry

  1. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Fry in 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and richness as they set in the hot fat.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the leavening to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk and cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Acid that works with baking soda to leaven the dough and balance flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown during frying.
Lard or butter
Fat that tenderizes the dough and carries flavor; hot lard also fries the outside golden.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy before the outside browns. Hot fat sets the surface quickly, which keeps the inside tender and the crust golden.

“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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