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Dessert

Dropped Fried Cakes

A batter of sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, and nutmeg is dropped into hot oil and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dropped Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, and a pinch of nutmeg until smooth.

  2. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop teaspoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil and fry slowly until golden brown.

  2. Remove from oil and dust with sugar before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot oil.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cakes their body.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes puff and become light.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and promotes browning on the outside as they fry.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Fry slowly until golden brown. Frying at too high a heat browns the outside before the centre cooks through, leaving the inside raw. Medium heat lets the interior set while the sugars and proteins on the surface brown gradually.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg. 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.

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