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Dessert

Easter Cakes, or Flat Simnels

A spiced fruit cake with currants, candied peel, and spices, baked into a flat round.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Easter Cakes, or Flat Simnels

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

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

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and fruits, mixing well; if using large eggs, add a little more flour if needed.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the mixture to nearly 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut into rounds of 6 to 8 inches in diameter.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

Glaze and finish

  1. Brush with egg wash when done.

  2. Sift with sugar.

  3. Return to the oven for 1 minute to glaze.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, traps air that lightens the cake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the cake rise.
Currants
Add sweetness, moisture, and chewy fruit pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating them until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which expands in the oven and helps the cake rise with a tender crumb. Underbeaten butter and sugar leave a dense cake.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg. 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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