Skip to main content
Dessert

Scrap Cakes

A cake made from pork fat, flour, sugar, currants, candied lemon peel, allspice, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Scrap 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 the fat

  1. Cut the fat into small pieces and cook in a pie dish at 400°F (200°C) until crisp but not browned, then drain well.

  2. Once cold, rub the fat into the flour.

Make the dough

  1. Add the currants, sugar, candied lemon peel (cut into thin slices), and ground allspice.

  2. Mix to a stiff paste with cold water.

  3. Roll out the mixture thin.

  4. Cut into shapes.

Bake

  1. Bake the cakes at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  2. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig inside fat
Melts and crisps during cooking, giving the cakes richness and a short, tender texture.
Flour
Forms the stiff paste that holds the cakes together in shape.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the cakes.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a soft, moist flavour to the cakes.
Candied lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and a touch of bitterness and sweetness.

The step that matters

Drain the fat well after cooking. Fat left wet or greasy adds excess moisture and oil to the paste, making it hard to handle and causing a heavy, greasy texture after baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, lemon, allspice):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, lemon, allspice. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes