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Dessert

Portugal Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, currants, eggs, cinnamon, mace, wine or noeau, rose water, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Portugal Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Prepare tin molds by lining the bottoms with buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, butter, and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the currants, eggs (minus the reserved whites), cinnamon, mace, white wine or noeau, and rose water. Mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Fill the molds no more than halfway with the batter.

  2. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top of the batter.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cakes brown.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the cakes their structure.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Filling the molds no more than halfway. Cakes rise as they bake, and batter filled above halfway can overflow or bake unevenly. Leaving room for expansion lets the centres cook through while the tops turn golden.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, currant, egg, cinnamon, white 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.

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