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Dessert

Portugal, or Heart Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, rose water, brandy, currants, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Portugal, or Heart Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, and butter by hand or with a whisk until a fine batter forms.

  2. Add the rose water, brandy, currants, and whisked eggs to the batter, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Butter tin molds and fill them three‑quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400 °F (200 °C) until golden.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

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

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cakes brown.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, lift, and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and contributes to golden browning in the oven.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and moisture pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Filling the tin molds three-quarters full. Batter rises in the oven, so overfilling can cause spillover and uneven baking, while underfilling yields flat cakes. Three-quarters full leaves room for the batter to expand.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, rose, brandy, egg. 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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