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Dessert

Obletjes

A Dutch tea cake made with flour, eggs, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and wine, baked and rolled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Obletjes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Mix in the sugar.

  3. Add the eggs, whisked separately.

  4. Stir in the wine and then the flour mixed with cinnamon.

  5. If the batter is too thick, add a little more wine.

Cook the oblie

  1. Bake in an oblivid-pan, placing about 2 teaspoons of batter in the pan.

  2. Close the pan and hold over the fire to brown on both sides for about 2 minutes.

  3. Open the pan and roll the oblie like a pancake while hot.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

Fine flour
Forms the structure that holds the thin cakes together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set with heat to add structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cakes brown.
Wine
Adds liquid to moisten the batter and adjust its thickness.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Browning both sides over the fire. Holding the closed pan over the fire for about 2 minutes browns the cakes. Too little heat leaves them pale and doughy, while too much scorches them before the centre sets. Rolling them while hot matters because they stiffen as they cool.

“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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