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Dessert

Honey Cakes

A sweet cake made with honey, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey 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 dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, and enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough well, then roll it out.

Shape and glaze

  1. Cut the dough with a cake cutter.

  2. Mix equal parts honey and water, and brush the tops of the cakes.

Bake

  1. 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Honey
Sweetens and keeps the cakes moist, and its sugars brown easily on the surface.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure, setting the shape of the cakes as they bake.
Cinnamon
Gives warm, sweet spice aroma to the cakes.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Honey and sugar brown quickly because they caramelise at oven heat, so the cakes can darken or burn before the centre sets. Check colour closely near the end of baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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

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