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Dessert

Tea Cakes

A sweet cake made with eggs, sugar, butter, baking soda, vinegar, and flavoring, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Tea Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Add the sugar and butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in vinegar and mix it in.

  4. Add flavoring to your taste.

  5. Make a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll it thin.

  2. Cut into shapes.

  3. Bake quickly until lightly 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.

  1. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as the cakes set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the finished cakes.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown lightly in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release gas, helping the cakes rise and lighten.
Vinegar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce lift and adds a slight acidity.

The step that matters

Bake quickly until lightly golden. Baking soda and vinegar release gas right after mixing, so the dough should be shaped and baked promptly to keep the lift. Over-baking dries the cakes and deepens browning too far.

“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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