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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried Cakes are dough cakes made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, eggs, shortening, sugar, and milk, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and coarse sea salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the shortening and sugar.

Make and shape the dough

  1. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, adding milk as needed to form a dough.

  2. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once combined with liquid.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the cakes rise.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the texture of the cakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and contributes to browning during frying.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady oil temperature gives even cooking and a crisp exterior.

“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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