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Dessert

Pitcaithly Bannock

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, almonds, candied peel, and rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pitcaithly Bannock

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and chop the almonds, and cut the candied peel into small pieces.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the all-purpose flour, butter, sugar, and rice flour together until well combined.

  2. Add the chopped almonds and candied peel, and form the mixture into a soft dough.

  3. Roll the dough into a round or square cake, about 1 inch thick.

Bake and cool

  1. Strew some flour on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet, and place the cake on it, using a band of paper to keep it in shape.

  2. Prick the top of the cake with a fork.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  4. Cool on the baking sheet.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 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).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb and helps the cake brown.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to golden browning in the oven.
Rice flour
Gives the dough a finer, more crumbly texture than wheat flour alone.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the dough.
Candied peel
Adds concentrated citrus-sweet flavour and aroma throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking at the stated moderate heat until golden sets the structure and develops browning. Removing it too early leaves a doughy centre, while overbaking dries the butter-rich dough and makes it crumbly.

“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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