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Dessert

Fried Cakes

A batter of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, and milk is fried into golden cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg and add milk.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients until smooth.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and fry until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Remove and drain on a colander.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the structure of the batter as the main dry ingredient.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the cakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the cakes rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid to hydrate the flour into batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the hot oil.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and fry until golden brown on both sides.. If the oil is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Frying until golden on both sides lets heat reach the middle.

“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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