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Dessert

Welsh Cheese Cakes

A pastry tart filled with jam and topped with a sweet batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Welsh Cheese Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly quick 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).

  2. Line patty tins with short or flaky pastry.

  3. Place a little jam in each pastry-lined tin.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.

  3. Add the flour mixture and egg alternately to the creamed butter and sugar.

Bake

  1. Spoon a teaspoonful of the mixture on top of the jam.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the sponge rises and stays light.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that sets as the cakes bake.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour beneath the sponge as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and egg alternately. Adding flour and egg in portions keeps the creamed butter mixture emulsified, so the batter stays smooth and light. Adding it all at once can curdle the mix and make the sponge heavy.

“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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