Name: Another Way to Make Shrewsbury Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound dried and sifted flour; ½ pound fresh butter; 7 ounces sifted loaf sugar; 7 ounces cleaned and dried currants; a little grated nutmeg; 2 tablespoons rose or orange-flower water; water as needed; flour for dusting

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.
Add the sugar, currants, and nutmeg, mixing well.
Make a paste with a little water and the rose or orange-flower water.

Shape and bake

Roll out the paste and cut it into round cakes.
Prick the cakes and place them on floured tins.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together494 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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: Forms the structure that holds the dough together as the cakes bake.
Fresh butter: Adds richness and tenderness by coating the flour and keeping the crumb short.
Loaf sugar: Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
Currants: Add fruity sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the cakes.
Rose or orange-flower water: Adds a floral aroma and moisture to bind the paste.

The step that matters

Rub the butter into the flour until well combined. If the butter is not evenly worked into the flour, the dough can turn out greasy in some spots and tough in others. Cold, evenly distributed fat coats the flour particles and keeps the cakes short and tender.

Swap the currant

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Currant Sherbet9 recipes

Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes

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Another Way to Make Shrewsbury Cakes