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Dessert

Rose Leaf Cakes

A sweet cake flavored with rose petals, made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rose Leaf Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light in another bowl.

  2. Add the milk and flour to the egg mixture.

  3. Sift the baking powder with the flour before adding.

  4. Mix in the creamed butter.

  5. Gently fold in the rose petals.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem pans and bake 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, golden browned crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Rose petals
Contribute the floral aroma that defines the flavor of this cake.

The step that matters

Sift the baking powder with the flour before adding. Baking powder must be evenly distributed through the batter, or pockets of leavening cause uneven rising and dense or bitter spots. Sifting spreads it through the flour so it mixes in uniformly.

“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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