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Excellent Fried Cakes

A batter of egg yolks, sugar, butter, milk, spices, leavening, and flour is fried in hot lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Excellent Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat together the egg yolks, sugar, and melted butter in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Add the milk, nutmeg, and vanilla extract, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk with the cream of tartar, then add the dissolved mixture to the batter.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder and flour.

  5. Gradually mix the dry mixture into the wet ingredients, handling as little as possible.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a deep pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard, turning them over as soon as they are in the oil.

  3. Continue turning the cakes until they are golden brown and cooked through.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a tender structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cakes as they cook.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas that lightens the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda produces lift and a lighter crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying to give the cakes rise and a light texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they fry.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the dry mixture into the wet ingredients. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, making the cakes tough and dense. Mixing just until combined keeps the texture tender and preserves the gas bubbles from the leavening.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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