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Dessert

Cinnamon Kitchen

A cinnamon-flavored cake made with milk sponge, butter, sugar, eggs, and optional almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cinnamon Kitchen

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Make a soft, smooth dough with milk sponge, butter, sugar, eggs, and flavors.

  2. Let the dough rise twice, then scale and mold into suitable pieces.

  3. Let them rest for a few minutes, then roll out flat to about ½ inch thick.

Shape and top

  1. Place on baking pans and brush with melted butter.

  2. Let them rise again, then sprinkle with a mixture of powdered sugar and cinnamon.

  3. For a richer cake, add small pieces of butter and chopped almonds on top before baking.

Bake

  1. 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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Milk sponge
Provides the yeasted base that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor, and browns the surface.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough and help bind it.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Second rise before topping. The dough must rise fully again after shaping so the pieces bake light and open. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or lose its shape 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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