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Dessert

Small Sugar Cakes of Various Kinds

A small, sweet cake made with butter, flour, sugar, and optional flavorings like lemon rind or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Small Sugar Cakes of Various Kinds

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, work the butter with your fingers until soft.

  2. Blend in the flour and sugar thoroughly.

  3. Add the grated lemon rind or your chosen flavoring and a pinch of salt.

  4. Gradually moisten the mixture with 2 to 4 slightly whisked eggs until it forms a firm paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the paste and stamp out shapes with a cake tin, or drop spoonfuls onto baking sheets.

  2. Space the cakes 2 inches apart on the baking sheets as they will spread while baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Softened fat that tenderises the dough and gives a rich, short texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the paste once moistened with egg.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture into a firm paste and add structure and richness.

The step that matters

Spacing the cakes on the baking sheets. The cakes spread while baking, so placing them too close can make them fuse together and bake unevenly. Leaving about 2 inches between them lets each cake keep its shape and brown evenly.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, egg, milk. 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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