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Baking

Egg Cracknels

A sweet, lightly baked dough made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder, cut into small pieces and boiled before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Cracknels

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift together the sugar, salt, baking powder, and flour.

  2. Rub in the butter and add the well-beaten eggs.

  3. Flour a surface, place the dough on it, and knead for a few minutes.

  4. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 15 minutes.

Shape and parboil

  1. Roll out the dough very thin, about 1/8 inch, and cut with a biscuit cutter.

  2. Bring a pot of water to a boil and prepare a bowl of cold water.

  3. Drop a few cut pieces into the boiling water.

  4. When they float and curl at the edges, remove with a skimmer and place in cold water.

  5. Once all are cooked, lay them on baking pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main structure of the dough once it is mixed and kneaded.
Eggs
Add moisture and richness and help bind the dough together.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives it richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the cracknels rise and lighten in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cracknels brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin pieces cook through and dry out evenly in the oven, giving a crisp texture. Thick pieces stay doughy in the middle.

“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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