Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Vanity Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.
Shape and fry
Roll the dough thin, like a wafer.
Cut the rolled dough into desired patterns.
Heat lard in a pan and fry the cut pieces until golden.
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.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure as it sets in frying.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough's main structure, becoming crisp and rigid when fried.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and gives the pieces a golden, crisp surface.
The step that matters
Frying the cut pieces in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to fry the thin pieces quickly. If it is too cool, the dough absorbs fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of crisp and golden.
“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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