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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A small cake made from sugar, butter, flour, milk or cream, and egg, baked until lightly golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Rub together the sugar, butter, and flour until well mixed.

  2. Add the milk or cream and the egg, mixing into a paste.

  3. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into small cakes about 3 inches wide.

  2. Bake the cakes on a clean baking plate in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until lightly 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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
Adds richness and tenderness, giving the cakes a crumbly, short texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown lightly in the oven.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the cakes.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture so the flour and butter form a workable paste.

The step that matters

Resting the dough for 30 minutes. Resting lets the flour absorb liquid and the butter firm up, which makes the thin dough easier to roll and helps the cakes keep their shape in the oven.

“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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