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Dessert

Portugal Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, rose water, brandy, eggs, and currants, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Portugal Cakes

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 batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and sugar.

  3. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Add the rose-water, brandy, beaten eggs, and currants; mix well.

Bake

  1. Butter small tin shapes and fill them halfway with the batter.

  2. Bake until golden and risen.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Rose + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  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. Rose + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it coats flour particles and gives the cakes a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and help the cakes rise and set as they bake.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as the eggs and butter set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
Currants
Add pockets of fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Filling the tins halfway. Batter rises as it bakes, so overfilling can cause spillover and dense, uneven cakes. Leaving room lets the heat set the crumb evenly as the cakes rise.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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