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Dessert

Honey Cakes

Honey cakes are a sweet baked confection made with honey, sugar, almonds, candied peel, spices, rum, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the honey paste

  1. Boil the sugar in the honey.

  2. Add the chopped almonds and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the candied peel, lemon rind, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, bicarbonate of soda, and rum.

  4. Mix in enough flour to stiffen the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the paste into 3‑inch squares and roll out very thin.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. When cool, sprinkle with sifted 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides sweetness and moisture, and keeps the cakes soft and chewy.
Almonds
Add body and a nutty texture to the paste.
Candied peel
Adds concentrated sweetness and chewy texture with citrus aroma.
Flour
Gives structure, stiffening the mixture so it can be rolled and cut.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidic honey to lighten the paste and aid browning.

The step that matters

Rolling the paste very thin. Thin pieces bake through and dry into crisp cakes, while thick ones stay doughy in the centre. Enough flour must be stiff enough to roll without sticking, and the paste should be kept evenly cut so all pieces bake at the same rate.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, honey, almond, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, honey, almond, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, rum. 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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