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Dessert

Peal Shrewsbury Cakes

A crumbly, cinnamon-flavored cake made from flour, butter, powdered sugar, and eggs, baked until brittle.

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 ↓

Peal 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, butter, powdered sugar, and cinnamon until crumbly.

  2. Add the eggs and work the mixture into a light paste.

  3. Roll out the paste thinly, enough for each piece to be the size of a breakfast cup.

  4. Cut into desired shapes and place on buttered baking sheets.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake the cakes quickly, pricking them with a fork as they rise to prevent burning.

  3. Remove from the oven when just hard, being careful as they are very brittle.

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, giving the cakes their crumbly texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown evenly while it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the dough into a paste and add richness and structure.

The step that matters

Removing the cakes when just hard. Shrewsbury cakes are very brittle and continue to firm as they cool. Taking them out too late can over-brown and dry them, while taking them out too early leaves them soft and likely to break.

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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