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Dessert

Crumb Cake

A yeast‑leavened sweet bread with a crumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Crumb Cake

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 ↓

Crumb 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast and salt in lukewarm milk or water and pour into a large bowl.

  2. Add the eggs, sugar, butter, lard, and spices and mix thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the flour and mix until combined.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 3 hours.

Shape and rise

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

  2. Cut into squares to fit your greased baking pans.

  3. Let the dough rise in the pans for 30 minutes.

  4. Prick the dough with a fork before brushing with butter.

  5. Brush the tops with hot melted butter and sprinkle with crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + macetop 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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chewy crumb.
Compressed yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during rising, which leavens the dough and makes it light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and enrich its crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps it soft.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and browns the crust on the surface.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. Yeast needs warmth and enough time to produce gas; under-rising leaves a dense crumb, while the dough must still be given time to develop structure before shaping.

Swap the mace

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

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

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