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Dessert

Fried Cakes Without Eggs

A fried cake made without eggs, using sugar, thick cream, sour milk, cinnamon, baking soda, flour, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fried Cakes Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix sugar, thick cream, sour milk, cinnamon, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Add flour gradually until the dough is stiff enough to roll.

  3. Roll out the dough.

  4. Cut the rolled dough into rings.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the rings in the hot lard 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.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sour milk
Reacts with baking soda to lift the dough and adds a tangy flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the cakes rise and lighten.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the cakes a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the fried surface brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be stiffened and rolled.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot lard. If the lard is not very hot, the rings absorb excess fat and turn greasy and heavy instead of browning quickly. Hot fat seals the surface fast, so the cakes cook through with a crisp, golden exterior and less oil soaked in.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, milk, 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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