Skip to main content
Dessert

Anise Seed Cakes

A light cake flavored with anise seed, made from eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anise and flour work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 270 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anise Seed 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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Add sugar and continue beating until well combined.

  3. Mix anise seed with flour and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture.

  4. Beat well, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Test the batter by baking a teaspoonful; if it spreads, add more flour.

Bake

  1. Drop by teaspoonfuls, one inch apart, onto buttered and floured pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Anise + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Yolks are beaten to lighten the batter, and whipped whites are folded in to give lift and a light crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, when beaten with the yolks, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise in the oven.
Anise seed
Adds the characteristic licorice-like aroma that flavors the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and gently folded in. Overmixing or deflating them releases that air, leaving the cakes denser and less light.

Swap the anise

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Anisethe original

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes