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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes made from a batter of eggs, sugar, milk, butter, flour, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder with a little flour, sifting it all together.

  2. Beat the eggs until light, then add them to the milk and stir well.

  3. Combine the two mixtures and add enough flour to create a dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough to ½ inch thick and cut out with a round cutter.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot lard 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the frying fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cakes rise and turn light and tender.
Flour
Thickens the mixture into a dough firm enough to roll out and cut.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, giving the cakes a richer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot lard until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. Hot fat seals the surface quickly so the cakes puff and brown evenly.

“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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