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Dessert

Tea Cakes

A sweet baked cake made with butter, lard, brown sugar, cream, eggs, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, vanilla, flour, topped with white sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tea Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and lard with salt and brown sugar until well combined.

  3. Add cream, egg, egg yolks, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, and vanilla. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut with a biscuit cutter.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and sprinkle a little white sugar on top before baking.

  3. Bake until lightly golden.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter and lard
Provides fat that makes the cakes tender and rich in flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to a softer, deeper flavour.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, supporting a tender crumb and smooth dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic components to help the cakes rise and brown.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough, setting as the cakes bake.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms. Adding too much flour makes the dough stiff and dry, producing tough cakes. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is soft and easy to roll.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

More tea cakes recipes

Yorkshire 31Cream 8Afternoon 7Berry 7English 7Queen's 3 See all 209 →

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