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Dessert

Colorado Tea Cakes

A small cake made from flour, cornflour, sugar, butter, lard, eggs, lemon juice, water, and salt, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Colorado Tea Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, cornflour, salt, and sugar together.

  2. Gradually rub in the butter until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, lemon juice, and water to form a paste.

Laminate and shape

  1. Roll out the dough, then spread the lard over two-thirds of the surface.

  2. Fold the dough into thirds, turn it, and roll out to ½ inch thick.

  3. Cut into rounds using a wine glass and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Split and butter the cakes while hot.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Cornflour
Gives a finer, more tender crumb than flour alone.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Lard
Spread and folded into the dough, it creates flaky layers and tenderness.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.

The step that matters

Folding the lard into the dough. Folding the fat in layers and rolling again separates the dough into thin sheets, which bake into flaky layers. Rolling too thin or unevenly can leave the layers uneven or greasy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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