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Dessert

German Butter or Coffee Cake

A yeast-leavened cake made with butter, lard, sugar, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

German Butter or Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk or water.

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, lard, and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs, salt, mace, and cinnamon to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the dissolved yeast.

  5. Gradually add the flour until a soft dough forms.

  6. Knead the dough until smooth and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a cake and place it in a greased pan.

  2. Let it rise again before baking.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that traps gas and sets the crumb as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and keeps it tender.
Eggs
Add richness, structure, and moisture to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas for a light texture. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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