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Dessert

Wheat Gems

A sweet yeast bread made with sugar, lard or butter, eggs, milk, yeast, salt, and flour, baked in a hot oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Wheat Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Set a sponge with lukewarm milk, yeast, and all the flour. Allow to rise until it breaks, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Make the batter

  1. In the meantime, cream the sugar and lard or butter, adding the eggs one by one.

  2. When the sponge is ready, combine the two mixtures and beat thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Fill well-greased gem tins and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen dough and sets as the gems bake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the creamed fat and sugar into the batter.
Lard or butter
Creamed with sugar to add tenderness, richness, and flavour to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the gems bake.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the gems rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and yeast to form the sponge and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Let the sponge rise until it breaks. Yeast needs time to ferment the flour and build gas; underproofed sponge gives dense gems, while the rise is what makes the batter light.

“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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