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Dessert

Crumpet Cake with Clotted Cream

A layered cake of crumpets, clotted cream, and sugar syrup baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Crumpet Cake with Clotted Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve salt and yeast in water.

  2. Pour the mixture into flour.

  3. Add enough water to form a dough.

  4. Knead the dough well.

  5. Place the dough in a warm area.

  6. Cover the dough with a cloth.

  7. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

  8. Shape the dough into rounds the size of small dinner plates.

Bake the crumpets

  1. Bake the rounds until done on both sides.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer crumpets with clotted cream and caster sugar in a circular baking tin.

  2. Finish the layers with a top coat of clotted cream.

  3. Combine loaf sugar, water, and butter in a saucepan.

  4. Stir the mixture over gentle heat until dissolved.

  5. Pour the syrup over the layered crumpets.

  6. Bake the cake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) for 10–15 minutes.

  7. Turn the crumpet cake onto a hot dish.

  8. Serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

White flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen dough and rounds together.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Loaf sugar
Dissolves into the syrup to add sweetness and moisture to the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the syrup, softening the crumb.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the layers and dissolves easily into the cream.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Yeast needs warmth and enough time to produce gas. An underproofed dough gives dense, heavy crumpets, so wait until it has truly doubled.

“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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