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Brain Cakes

Brain Cakes are fried cakes made from calf brains, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brains

  1. Soak the brains in a strong mixture of salt and water for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the brains in cold water for 20 minutes.

  3. Chop the boiled brains into rough pieces and place in a bowl.

Make the cakes

  1. Rub the butter into the chopped brains.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and mace; mix well.

  3. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the mixture and add the yolks of the eggs; beat well together.

  4. Flour your hands slightly and form the mixture into small, flat, round cakes.

  5. Whip the egg whites and dip the cakes into them, then roll in the remaining bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in hot clarified fat or lard for 2 minutes.

  2. Drain on kitchen paper and serve in a folded napkin garnished with parsley.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Brains
Provide the soft, rich body that forms the main mass of each cake.
Eggs
Yolks bind the mixture, while whipped whites coat the cakes to help them crisp when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the mixture moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cakes body, with more crumbs forming a crisp outer coating.

The step that matters

Dip the cakes in whipped egg white before frying. Whipped egg white forms a thin coating that sets on contact with hot fat, helping the crumbs adhere and the outside brown and crisp. Cakes that are not coated evenly may break apart or fry unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, parsley, pepper, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, pepper, bread. 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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