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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A sweet biscuit made with butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, mace, and flour, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together ½ cup of butter and ⅓ cup of caster sugar until creamy.

  2. Add 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and mace, then mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in 6 oz of flour until the mixture is smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Dust a little flour on a clean surface.

  2. Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough as thin as possible.

  3. Use a floured wine glass to cut the dough into cakes.

  4. Grease a baking tin with butter.

  5. Arrange the cakes on the tin and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes or until light brown.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with the sugar to give the dough a tender, short texture and richness.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps create a creamy texture when beaten with butter.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and richness to hold the cakes together.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together once rolled and baked.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes evenly and crisp rather than soft or doughy in the centre. Flouring the surface and pin keeps the dough from sticking and tearing while it is rolled.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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