Skip to main content
Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes are batter cakes fried in hot fat until golden brown.

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

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 ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the butter until well combined.

  2. Add the cream of tartar, sugar, vanilla extract, and baking soda.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is thick but still workable.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough out thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Heat the fat in a pan and fry the cakes until golden brown on both sides.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  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
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the eggs and adds a slight tang to the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to help the cakes rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy before they cook through.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream, sugar, 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 fried cakes recipes

Eggless 7Bread 4Potato 3 See all 118 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes