Name: Shrewsbury Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pound fresh butter, washed in rose water; ½ pound dried and sifted flour; 7 ounces pounded and sifted loaf sugar; ½ ounce caraway seeds; 2 eggs

Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Ingredients

½ pound fresh butter, washed in rose water
½ pound dried and sifted flour
7 ounces pounded and sifted loaf sugar
½ ounce caraway seeds
2 eggs

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Mix in the flour, sugar, caraway seeds, and eggs until a paste forms.

Shape and bake

Roll the paste thin on a floured surface.
Cut into round cakes and prick the tops.
Bake on floured tins at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rose + carawaytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together93 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Fresh butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the cakes a tender, crumbly texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the paste together and sets as the cakes bake.
Loaf sugar: Sweetens the cakes and contributes to their golden browning in the oven.
Eggs: Bind the paste and add moisture and structure to the cakes.
Caraway seeds: Provide the characteristic aroma and flavour of the cakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the paste thin. Thin, evenly rolled dough bakes through and turns crisp rather than dense or doughy. Uneven thickness causes some cakes to burn while others stay raw in the centre.

Swap the caraway

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Carawaythe original
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rose, flour, 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.

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

Spice Cake344 recipes

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Shrewsbury Cakes