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Dessert

Lentil Cakes

Lentil cakes are baked patties made from soaked lentils, butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and nuts share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the lentils

  1. Wash lentils in several waters and soak overnight.

  2. Boil lentils until soft but not broken, then drain.

Shape and bake

  1. Add melted butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, and nuts to the lentils.

  2. Shape the mixture into round cakes and place on greased baking sheets.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for fifteen minutes.

  4. Sprinkle additional nuts on top 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. Lentils + nutstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the main bulk and body, setting the cakes' structure once cooked and mashed.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and help the cakes hold their shape while baking.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the baked cakes.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor to the cakes.

The step that matters

Boil lentils until soft but not broken, then drain.. Overcooking makes lentils fall apart into a paste, while undercooking leaves them firm. Cooking to just tender keeps enough texture for the cakes to hold their shape.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

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