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Dessert

Cherry Cakes

A batter of eggs, wine, water, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour coats cherries, which are then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cherry Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine eggs, white wine, water, melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

  2. Add flour gradually until a batter forms.

Fry the cherries

  1. Take 5 or 6 ripe cherries, tie them in a bunch, and dip them into the batter.

  2. Fry the dipped cherries in a hot pan until golden brown.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and hold its shape when fried.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure so it coats the cherries and firms up in the pan.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender texture to the batter.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavor to the batter while contributing liquid.

The step that matters

Frying the dipped cherries in a hot pan. The pan must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown it before the cherries overheat or the coating turns greasy and soaks up oil. Too cool a pan lets the batter absorb fat and cook unevenly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, white wine, butter, sugar, 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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