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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, cinnamon or nutmeg, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon 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 ↓

Queen Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the sugar and spice.

  3. Add half of the beaten eggs and mix for 10 minutes.

  4. Incorporate the remaining eggs and mix for another 10 minutes.

  5. Gently stir in the flour, then fold in the currants.

Prepare and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter small tins and place them on a large tin or a wire rack.

  3. Bake for about 10 minutes or until done.

  4. Turn the cakes out of the tins immediately after baking.

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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 trap air and give the cakes a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they set, and help the batter hold air.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its starch sets during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb while creaming with the butter.
Currants
Add pockets of fruitiness and sweetness throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Gently stir in the flour, then fold in the currants. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, making the cakes tough and dense. Gentle folding keeps the batter light and airy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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