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Dessert

Shrewsbury Cakes

A small cake made from flour, rice flour, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, lemon rind, and optional currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the beaten egg, flour, vanilla extract, and lemon rind; mix well.

  3. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead very lightly.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into rounds.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about ten minutes.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with the egg and butter.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Rice flour
Adds a finer, more delicate texture to the crumb than wheat flour alone.

The step that matters

Light kneading of the dough. Overworking the dough develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes tough instead of short and crumbly. Knead only lightly and roll the dough thinly.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, lemon):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, lemon. 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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