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Dessert

Mush Cakes

Mush Cakes are small cakes made from cold mush and wheat flour, with butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Mush Cakes

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mush Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cold mush and wheat flour in a bowl.

  2. Add a little butter or lard and mix until well combined.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape the mixture into small cakes using your hands.

  2. Cook the cakes on a griddle or bake them in the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Mush
Supplies the bulk and moisture that bind the cakes together.
Wheat flour
Provides structure as its starch and gluten set when cooked.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour and browning.

“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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