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Baking

Good Tea Rolls

A baking powder coffee cake made from a stiff batter and topped with sugar, cinnamon and butter before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Good Tea Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Flour to make pretty stiff batter.

  2. Make 3 small cakes.

  3. Mix well together: 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, small lump butter.

  4. Put on cakes before baking.

  5. Flour enough to make a stiff batter.

  6. Sift baking powder with the flour.

  7. The egg can be omitted.

  8. Cover top with sugar, cinnamon, and bits of butter.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

839Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
122 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 structure of the batter and cake crumb as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake and topping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture so the batter mixes into a workable consistency.

The step that matters

Sift baking powder with the flour.. Sifting spreads the baking powder evenly through the flour. Lumps of leavening can cause uneven rising and bitter pockets in the finished cake.

“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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