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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A buttery shortbread-like cake from Shrewsbury, made with flour, butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and eggs.

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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Mix the flour, butter, powdered sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl, breaking the butter into small pieces with your hands.

  2. Work the mixture into a light paste.

Shape

  1. Roll out the paste thinly until an ounce weighs as much as the top of a small basin.

  2. Cut into shapes and place on buttered paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 2 hours, pricking the cakes as they rise.

  2. Carefully remove from the oven to avoid breaking.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the cakes tender and crumbly rather than tough.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cakes and dissolves fine enough to give an even texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavour to the cakes.

The step that matters

Roll out the paste thinly. Thickness controls how the cakes bake. Thin, even pieces dry and brown through evenly, while uneven thickness leaves some cakes soft and others overbaked.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, 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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