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Dessert

German Honey Cake

A sweet cake made with honey, sugar, eggs, flour, and ammonia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

German Honey Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Boil the honey and mix it with the sugar.

  2. Add enough flour to make a slack dough.

  3. When cool, add the ammonia and eggs.

  4. Work in enough flour to roll out the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut out shapes with a square or ring cutter.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Honey + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and keeps the cake soft and moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown while baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Ammonia
Leavens the dough by releasing gas as it bakes.
Flour
Provides structure as its proteins and starches set during baking.

The step that matters

Add the ammonia and eggs only when the honey mixture is cool. Adding eggs to very hot liquid can scramble them and make the dough uneven. Heat can also weaken the leavening agent before the dough reaches the oven, so waiting protects both the texture and the rise.

“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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