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Dessert

Federal Cakes

A sweet cake made with flour, butter, sugar, spices, wine or brandy, rose water, eggs, and pearl ash, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Federal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a deep pan and cut in the butter.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour, then gradually add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, wine or brandy, and rose water.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and add them to the mixture with the pearl-ash dissolved in a little lukewarm water.

  4. Mix well and add cold water to form a dough just stiff enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead slightly and roll out to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut into small cakes using a tin cutter or tumbler, dusting the cutter with flour to prevent sticking.

  3. Place the cakes on buttered shallow pans or flat sheets of tin, ensuring they do not touch.

  4. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

Serve

  1. These cakes are best the second day.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure once mixed with liquid and rolled out.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour particles and shortening the dough.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
Pearl-ash
Leavens the dough, helping the cakes rise and lighten in the oven.
Powdered white sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking until light brown in a brisk oven. Dough stiffness and oven heat set the cakes' texture. Too little heat or too long baking dries them out, while stopping too early leaves them doughy inside.

“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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