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Brioche Cakes

A yeasted sweet bread with lemon flavor, layered and baked into a brioche cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Brioche Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk.

  2. Add 1½ cups of flour, sugar, and salt; cover and let rise until light and bubbly.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, melted butter, lemon rind, lemon juice, and remaining flour, mixing well.

  4. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.

Shape the cake

  1. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to ½ inch thick.

  2. Spread with softened butter, fold both sides to the center to create three layers, and cut into strips ¾ inch wide.

  3. Cover and let rise again.

  4. Take each piece, fold the ends together to form a circle, and let rise until doubled.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light and bubbly.
Eggs
Add structure, richness, and moisture, and help bind the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, richness, and flavor in the layers.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the shaped pieces rise until doubled before baking. Yeast gas needs time to expand the gluten network. Under-proofed dough bakes dense and heavy instead of light and airy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, butter, 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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