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Dessert

Saffron Cakes

A sweet cake flavored with saffron, made with flour, butter, milk, eggs, yeast, salt, coriander seeds, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Saffron and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 381 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Saffron 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.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the milk in a pot and add the butter and a good amount of sugar.

  2. Strain saffron into the milk to your taste.

  3. In a bowl, combine the eggs, egg yolks, and yeast.

  4. Add the milk mixture when it is almost cold, along with salt and coriander seeds.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the mixture together and shape it into small cakes.

  2. Bake the cakes in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Saffron + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + saffrontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Fine flour
Forms the main structure that holds the dough and cakes together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Cream or milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour to form the dough.
Eggs
Add structure as they set, along with richness and moisture.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and a tender texture from their fat.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Add the milk mixture when it is almost cold. Very hot liquid can kill yeast before it has a chance to make the dough rise, so cooling the milk first protects the leavening.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, saffron, egg. 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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