Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rock Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
In a bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
Rub the clarified dripping into the flour until no lumps remain.
Clean the currants, removing any stones, and add them to the flour.
Stir in the ginger or nutmeg and sugar.
Add the chopped candied peel to the mixture.
Mix all ingredients together with a wooden spoon.
In a cup, beat the egg with the milk. Pour the egg mixture into the bowl and mix until a stiff paste forms.
Shape and bake
Grease a baking tin with dripping.
Divide the paste into small portions and place them in rough heaps on the tin.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven when golden brown and ready to serve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
- Clarified dripping
- Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, helping the cakes rise and stay light.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and adds structure and moisture to the paste.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the cakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Rubbing the fat into the flour. Rubbing the dripping into the flour until no lumps remain coats the flour particles with fat, which limits gluten development and keeps the cakes tender rather than tough.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter, 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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