Name: Portugal Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound flour; ½ pound sugar; ½ pound butter; ½ pound currants; 3 egg yolks; 3 lemons (grated peel); ½ cup cream; 1 egg white

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Portugal 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

Sift the flour and rub in half the butter.
Add the egg yolks and cream to make a soft paste.

Shape and bake

Mix in the sugar, washed currants, grated lemon peel, and beaten egg white.
Roll out the paste, incorporating the remaining butter.
Cut into small cakes.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness by coating the flour and keeping the crumb short.
Egg yolks: Enrich the paste and help bind it into a soft dough.
Egg white: Adds lift and moisture, helping the cakes set as they bake.
Sugar: Sweetens the cakes and promotes gentle browning in the oven.
Currants: Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cakes.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Raspberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, lemon, cream. 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.