Skip to main content
Dessert

Scrap Cakes

A cake made from pig fat, flour, sugar, currants, candied lemon peel, allspice, and 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 quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the lard

  1. Cut the leaf lard into small pieces and place it in a large dish.

  2. Melt the lard in a 400°F (200°C) oven until it reduces to oil, ensuring it does not burn.

Make the dough

  1. In a basin, combine the melted lard scraps with the flour and rub them together.

  2. Add the currants, sugar, candied lemon peel, and ground allspice, mixing well.

  3. Moisten the mixture with cold water to form a nice paste.

Bake

  1. Roll out the paste thin, cut into shapes, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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

Leaf lard
Provides fat that rubs into the flour, giving the cakes a short, tender texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste once moistened with water.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture to the paste.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and chewy bits throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Melting the lard without burning it. Lard that scorches turns bitter and brown, spoiling the flavour of the cakes. Gentle, controlled heat melts the fat into clear oil that coats the flour evenly.

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