Name: Drop Cakes
Ingredients: 2 pounds flour; 2 pounds butter; 2 pounds sugar; 2 pounds currants, cleaned and dried; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons orange-flower water; 2 tablespoons rose-water; ⅓ cup sweet wine; ⅓ cup brandy

Why it works: Orange and rose work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 876 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Drop 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.

Prepare

Mix flour, butter, sugar, and currants in a bowl.
Wet the mixture into a stiff paste with eggs and the flavorings.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls onto a floured tin plate.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a short time.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Orange + rosetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together876 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together494 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, helping the cakes stay soft and moist.
Eggs: Bind the mixture into a paste and add structure as the cakes set.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the drop cakes together as they bake.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown during baking.
Currants: Add fruitiness and chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the cakes.

Swap the orange

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Raspberryfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, currant, egg, rose, wine. 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.