Name: German Coffee Cake
Ingredients: 3 cups flour; 2 tablespoons flour; 3 tablespoons sugar; 1 teaspoon boiling-hot 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 2 tablespoons butter bread; 8 tablespoons butter; 1 pint milk; 1 cup sugar; 4 cups flour; 2 scant teaspoons baking powder; 2 heaping tablespoons but- ter; 2 eggs; 1 egg; two pans; 1 cake yeast; 3 eggs; cinnamon; salt

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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: Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter and crumb topping together.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and makes the topping crumbly.
Eggs: Add structure and richness to the batter and dough.
Yeast: Produces gas during rising, giving the dough its light, airy texture.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form the batter and dough.
Sugar: Feeds the yeast, adds sweetness, and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Let the yeast dough rise fully. The yeast produces gas slowly in a warm place, and the dough must reach double its size to bake up light. Rising too little leaves it dense, while rising too long can cause it to collapse.

Swap the cinnamon

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

Cinnamonthe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Capersfits less well
Parsleyfits less well

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

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Cake	not in our table	0

German Coffee Cake