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Baking

Currant Cakes

Currant cakes are small baked pastries made with currants, butter, flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a 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. Clean and pick the currants.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the currants, nutmeg, and sugar; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the eggs and brandy, then add to the flour mixture.

  4. Add enough milk to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thin and cut into cakes.

  2. Place on a buttered tin and bake for about 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Rubbed into the flour, it coats flour particles and gives the cakes a tender, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as the cakes set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once it is bound with eggs and milk.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown lightly in the oven.
Currants
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruit flavor throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through quickly and dries out enough to become crisp. Thick cakes may stay doughy in the center within the stated baking time.

Swap the currant

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

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

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