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Dessert

Portugal Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, currants, eggs, cinnamon, mace, white wine or noyau, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Portugal 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, butter, and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the currants, eggs, cinnamon, mace, white wine or noyau, and rose water. Mix thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Line tin moulds or hoops with buttered paper and fill them no more than half full.

  2. Sift powdered sugar on top before baking.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

Richer variation

  1. For richer cakes, substitute the flour with a paste made from almonds and rose water.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as the cakes set.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, lift, and richness to the cakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cakes brown during baking.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Filling the moulds no more than half full. Batter rises and spreads as it bakes, so overfilling can cause spillover and uneven, dense results. Leaving room lets the cakes rise evenly and set properly.

Swap the mace

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

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

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