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Dessert

Sally Lun Tea or Breakfast Cakes

A yeast-leavened cake made with flour, yeast, milk, butter, sugar, egg yolks, and salt, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sally Lun Tea or Breakfast Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Make a hole in the middle of the flour in a pan.

  2. Add the yeast and pour in the warmed milk, mixing it with some of the flour.

  3. Set the mixture aside to rise.

  4. Melt the butter, sugar, and a little milk over low heat.

  5. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and salt with the risen flour mixture.

  6. When the butter and milk are lukewarm, mix them into the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Butter some cake hoops and place them on buttered iron plates.

  2. Fill the hoops about 1 inch deep and let them rise in a warm place.

  3. Once risen, bake in a warm oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the risen cakes together.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Egg yolks add richness, tenderness and color to the dough.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar, forming a soft dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build structure. Under-proofed cakes stay dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

“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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