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Dessert

Vienna Cakes

A light cake made from flour, sugar, butter, and Cottolene, filled with raspberry jam and dusted with icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vienna Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Make a short paste by mixing 12 oz flour, 3 oz sugar, 3 oz Cottolene, 1 egg, and 3 oz butter.

  2. Roll the paste to 1/8 inch thick.

Shape and fill

  1. Cut out crinkled shapes, 1 inch wide at the bottom and 2 inches wide at the top.

  2. Place a small spot of raspberry jam in the center of each shape.

  3. Mix 1 lb flour, 8 oz butter, 8 oz Cottolene, and 5 oz icing sugar until smooth.

  4. Spoon the mixture into each cake.

  5. Roughen the tops with a fork.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. Once cooled, dust each cake with fine sugar and serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste and the filling mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat in both the paste and filling.
Cottolene
Shortening that adds tenderness and helps the cakes keep a crumbly texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Egg
Binds the short paste together and adds richness.

The step that matters

Roll the paste to 1/8 inch thick. Even thickness makes the shapes bake at the same rate, so thin spots do not burn while thick spots stay doughy. Keeping the paste cool also helps it hold its crinkled shape.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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