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Dessert

Fried Cakes

A batter of eggs, sugar, milk, butter, salt, vanilla, baking powder, and flour is folded with beaten egg whites and fried until golden.

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

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the yolks of the eggs and vanilla to the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Sift the baking powder with the flour and add it to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Fry

  1. Mix until soft and then 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten stiff, lighten it for a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness to the batter.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help build a light structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it sets.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form a soft batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously deflates the air whipped into the egg whites, which is what lightens the batter. Fold gently and quickly so the batter keeps its rise before frying.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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

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