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Dessert

Scotch Queen Cake

A buttery oat cake flavored with cinnamon, mace, and optional currants, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Scotch Queen Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Melt the butter and let it cool.

  2. Sift the oat-meal into a pan and mix in the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and mace.

  3. Make a hole in the center, add the melted butter, and mix with a knife until a dough forms.

  4. If the dough is too stiff, moisten it with a little rose-water.

  5. Knead the dough well and roll it out into a large oval sheet, about 1 inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough down the middle and then across to divide it into four cakes.

  2. Prick the cakes with a fork and crimp the edges neatly.

  3. Place the cakes in shallow pans and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light 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.

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 + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rose + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + rosetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Adds richness and moisture, binding the dry ingredients into a dough.
Oat-meal
Forms the body of the cake, giving it a coarse, sturdy texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bringing the dough together. Adding the melted butter gradually and mixing only until a dough forms keeps the texture even. Too much liquid makes the dough sticky and hard to shape, so rose-water should be added only if the dough is too stiff.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, cinnamon, mace, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cinnamon, mace, rose. 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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