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Dessert

Cinnamon Squares

A sweet baked treat made from a batter of brown sugar, flour, shortening, milk, and cinnamon, topped with butter and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cinnamon Squares

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the shortening and brown sugar together.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  5. Spread the batter thinly in a greased shallow tin.

Top and bake

  1. Dot the top with bits of butter and sprinkle generously with brown sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Bake until golden, then cut into squares and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the squares together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the squares rise and turn light.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a soft texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the batter into a spreadable mixture.

The step that matters

Spread the batter thinly in a greased shallow tin. A thin, even layer bakes through quickly and evenly, while a thick layer can stay raw in the centre and brown unevenly on top. Greasing prevents sticking when the squares are cut and lifted out.

“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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