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Dessert

Tea Cakes

A small cake made with eggs, sugar, butter or lard, buttermilk, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tea Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the butter or lard and buttermilk, mixing until smooth.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the cinnamon and nutmeg.

  6. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into small cakes and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 to the cakes.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas. Dissolving it fully in the buttermilk before mixing spreads it evenly, so the cakes rise uniformly instead of unevenly or with bitter pockets.

“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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