Skip to main content
Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, cinnamon, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift together 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 3 scant teaspoons baking powder.

  2. Rub in 2 heaping teaspoons butter.

  3. Add 2 beaten eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk to the dry mixture until a pretty stiff batter forms.

  4. Spread batter 1 inch thick on well-buttered pans.

Add the topping and bake

  1. Mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon, and 4 tablespoons sugar.

  2. Rub in 2 tablespoons butter until crumbly.

  3. Spread the crumbly mixture thickly on top of the dough.

  4. Bake about 2 hours in a moderate oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

684Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 sets the batter into a sliceable cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the batter rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps the topping turn crumbly.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the topping brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Spread the batter 1 inch thick. The batter is stiff and must fill the pans evenly to a set depth; uneven spreading gives uneven rising and baking, so thin spots can dry out while thick spots stay underbaked.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes