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Dessert

Rock Cake

A cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, coffee, lemon juice, and flour, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rock Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs, then mix in the coffee and lemon juice.

  3. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered baking sheets, shaping them to look rough.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until they retain their shape and brown on the edges.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rough shapes as they bake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the edges brown during baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until the cakes retain their shape and brown on the edges. Baking in a hot oven sets the eggs and flour quickly so the rough shapes hold. Underbaking leaves the centres soft and doughy, while the browning from sugar and heat gives flavour and colour.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, coffee, 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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