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Dessert

Fruit Tea Cakes

Fruit tea cakes are sweet cakes with fruit filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Fruit Tea 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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat together the margarine and sugar.

  3. Add the egg and beat thoroughly.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder, then stir into the mixture.

  5. Pour the batter into patty pans and bake for about 30 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. While still warm, split the cakes open and fill with fresh fruit mashed with a little sugar.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its starch sets during baking.
Margarine
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps create a tender texture when creamed with the fat.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds moisture and structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Sift the flour and baking powder, then stir into the mixture. Stir only until the flour is just combined. Overmixing develops gluten, which makes the cakes tough, while even distribution of baking powder ensures an even rise.

“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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