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Dessert

Drop Cakes

Drop Cakes are small, sweet cakes made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, currants, and baking soda.

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

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Drop Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and grated nutmeg, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the flour, baking soda, and currants until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the drops together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender crumb and browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to give lift and help the drops spread and rise.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour, baking soda, and currants until combined.. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the drop cakes tough. Mix only until no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More drop cakes recipes

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