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Dessert

Queen Cakes

A buttery currant cake with lemon or almond essence, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Queen Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Sift the baking powder with the flour onto a sheet of paper.

  2. In a clean bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and cream until light and creamy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  2. Stir in the flour and currants, adding milk to achieve a cake batter consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into small buttered tins.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the structure that sets as the cakes bake.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps trap air when beaten with butter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cakes rise.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them too quickly can split the batter, which can leave the finished cakes heavy and coarse.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, cream, 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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