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Shrewsbury Cakes

A shortbread-like cake made by rubbing butter and sugar, then adding flour and egg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, rub the butter and sugar together with your hands until creamy.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour.

  4. Add the beaten egg and mix until combined. If the mixture is too stiff, add the cream.

  5. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into small shapes.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the cakes on buttered paper on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly golden.

  3. While hot, sift sugar over the cakes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense, crumbly dough together.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, short texture as it is rubbed into the sugar.
Granulated sugar
Creams with the butter for a fine texture and adds sweetness and light browning.
Large egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and richness.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture to loosen a dough that has become too stiff.

The step that matters

Rubbing the butter and sugar until creamy. Working the butter and sugar together traps air and distributes fat evenly, which sets the tender, crumbly texture. Stopping too early leaves streaks of butter and a tough result.

“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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