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Dessert

Whortleberry Fried-cakes

A batter of flour, eggs, sugar, milk, and berries fried into small cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whortleberry Fried-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift baking powder and salt with flour.

  2. Pick over the whortleberries carefully.

  3. Beat the eggs for five minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Stir sugar and milk into the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the berries and flour, mixing lightly to form a stiff batter.

  3. If needed, add more flour.

Fry

  1. Fry tablespoonfuls of the batter in hot oil.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it fries.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
Whortleberries
Add moisture, tartness and flavour to the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, workable batter.

The step that matters

Mixing the berries and flour into the batter. Mixing lightly keeps the batter tender, since overworking flour develops gluten and makes fried cakes tough. The batter should be stiff enough to hold its shape when dropped into the oil.

“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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