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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes are made from a dough of sour milk, sugar, eggs, butter, baking soda, and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine thick sour milk, sugar, eggs, melted butter, and baking soda.

  2. Add nutmeg or cinnamon for flavor.

  3. Gradually mix in flour until the dough is workable.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Thick sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Eggs
They bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to release carbon dioxide, helping the cakes rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface turn golden brown.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which contributes tenderness and richness to the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together for rolling and frying.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy before the outside browns. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, butter, 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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