Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rock 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Stir in the currants, sugar, and nutmeg or spice.
Add the egg and milk, mixing to form a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Shape the dough into small cakes and place them on a baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
- Butter or clean fat
- Rubbed into the flour to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the cakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become lighter.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the cakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
The step that matters
Rubbing in the butter. Rubbing fat into flour coats the flour particles and limits gluten formation, which keeps the cakes short and crumbly. Stopping when the mixture resembles breadcrumbs avoids overworking it into a greasy or dense texture.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, milk. 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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