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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A small, buttery cake flavored with cinnamon and mace, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together the butter and caster sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and the mixed cinnamon and mace, then combine well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour until the mixture is smooth.

Shape the cakes

  1. Dust a little flour on a clean surface.

  2. Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough as thin as possible.

  3. Use a floured wine glass or cookie cutter to cut out shapes.

Bake

  1. Grease a baking tin with butter.

  2. Place the cakes on the tin and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes or until light 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Caster sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a light, tender texture.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes into crisp, short cakes; thicker dough stays soft and doughy in the centre. Flouring the pin and surface keeps the dough from sticking and tearing when cut.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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