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Dessert

Saucer Cakes

Saucer cakes are small cakes made with flour, lard, dripping, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon peel, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Saucer Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the lard and dripping into the flour.

  3. Add the sugar and grated lemon peel or spice.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat the eggs and milk together, then mix into the dry ingredients.

  2. Just before baking, stir in the baking powder.

  3. Pour the mixture into three saucer tins.

  4. Bake until golden and serve hot with butter and preserves.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cakes as its starch and proteins set during baking.
Lard and dripping
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the cakes structure and richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking powder just before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet and heated. Waiting until the batter is ready to go into the oven keeps that gas for rising instead of losing it while the batter sits.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, sugar. 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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