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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes are sweet batter rings fried in lard, often with a potato added to prevent burning.

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

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix sugar, eggs, shortening, baking soda, and sour milk in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Cut the mixture into rings.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until very hot.

  2. Add a peeled potato to the pan to prevent burning.

  3. Drop the cake rings into the hot lard.

  4. They will rise to the surface when light.

  5. Fry until dark brown.

  6. Remove the cakes from the lard.

Finish

  1. Sprinkle with sugar.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cakes.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the texture of the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and gives the fried surface a light browning.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot lard. 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. Steady, very hot lard seals the surface quickly so the cakes cook through and stay light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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