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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A yeasted sweet loaf with a cinnamon‑sugar topping, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast cake in the water.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar, salt, and milk; stir until melted.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast and 1½ cups of flour; beat until smooth and bubbly.

  4. Incorporate the beaten egg and enough additional flour to form a dough.

  5. Knead the dough until smooth, then let it rise until doubled in size (about 3 hours).

Shape and rise

  1. Knead slightly, then roll out to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Place in a pan and let it rise for 1 hour.

Top and bake

  1. Brush the top with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Yeast cake
Produces gas that leavens the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the topping.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough, helping it hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps browning.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.

The step that matters

Rising the dough. The dough must be allowed to rise fully before baking. Yeast produces gas slowly, and under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse.

“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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