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Honey Cake with Eggs

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 270 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Honey Cake with Eggs

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.

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until thick.

  2. Gradually add the honey, beating thoroughly after each addition.

  3. Add the ground caraway seed.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until frothy.

  5. Add the lemon juice and continue beating until white and crumbly.

  6. Fold the yolk mixture, nut meal, and flour into the egg whites.

  7. Pour the batter into ungreased bake tins immediately.

  8. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a straw or knitting needle comes out clean.

  9. Invert the cakes onto a cooling rack to allow air circulation.

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. Caraway + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Honey + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,707 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, sugar, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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