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Brain Cakes

Brain cakes are small fried cakes made from parboiled brains, suet, bread crumbs, herbs, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Brain Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Parboil the brains, then chop them slightly.

  2. Mix the chopped brains with bread crumbs, herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  3. Bind the mixture with the egg and form into small cakes about ¾ inch thick.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in hot dripping until brown.

  2. Drain on paper before serving.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brains
Form the main body of the cakes, giving them a soft, rich filling.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when formed and fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the cakes stay tender rather than wet.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the cakes and helps them brown in the frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in hot dripping until brown. The cakes are soft and bound only by egg and crumbs, so they can break or stay pale if the fat is not hot enough. A hot fat sears the surface quickly, forming a browned crust that holds the cake together while the inside cooks through.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, parsley, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, parsley, marjoram, pepper. 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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