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Dessert

Eccles Cakes

A Scottish pastry filled with citron peel, currants, and sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Eccles 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 the filling

  1. Mix the citron peel, melted butter, currants, sifted sugar, and nutmeg together.

Shape the cakes

  1. Roll out the flaky pastry to a thickness of about ¼ inch.

  2. Cut the pastry into rounds.

  3. Place some of the mixture in the center of each round.

  4. Gather the edges together, pinch firmly, and turn them over.

  5. Roll out into neat rounds or ovals until the currants just show through.

  6. Score the tops in diamond shapes.

Bake and finish

  1. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with sifted sugar.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Flaky pastry
Forms the flaky, layered outer case that bakes crisp around the filling.
Currants
Provide chewy sweetness and bulk inside the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture to the filling, keeping it soft and rich.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the filling and, sprinkled on top, caramelises to a glossy finish.
Citron peel
Adds candied citrus flavour and a slight bitter aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges firmly before baking. A tight seal keeps the filling from leaking out in the oven. Pastry that is rolled too thin or left open can split and let the sugary currant mixture burn on the tray.

Swap the currant

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

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

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