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Dessert

Honey Cakes

Honey Cakes are sweet baked cakes made with butter, honey, almonds, flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Honey Cakes

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. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the honey and bring to a boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Mix in the pounded almonds, nutmeg, lemon rind, flour, and baking soda dissolved in a little warm water.

  5. Leave the mixture untouched overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to 1 inch thick and cut into small square cakes.

  2. Ornament the top of each with a piece of lemon peel.

  3. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes stay soft and tender.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the honey's acidity to help the cakes rise and lighten.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a nutty flavor, with fat that keeps the texture moist.

The step that matters

Boiling the honey. Boiling honey for the full five minutes while stirring constantly prevents scorching and drives off some water, which affects how the dough firms and browns. Stirring keeps the sugars from burning on the pan bottom.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, honey, almond, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, honey, almond, nutmeg, flour. 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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