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Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A sweet, crumbly cake with a flour and sugar topping, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

German Coffee 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.

  3. Beat the eggs and add the milk, then stir into the dry ingredients.

  4. Add more milk if necessary to achieve a very stiff batter.

  5. Spread the batter 2 inches thick in buttered pans.

Add the topping and bake

  1. For the topping, mix together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon, then rub in the butter until crumbly.

  2. Spread the topping over the batter and bake 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the structure of the cake as its starches and proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lift the thick batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as their proteins set.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make the mixture crumbly and tender.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and combines with the eggs to form the batter.

The step that matters

Add more milk if necessary to achieve a very stiff batter.. A stiff batter holds its shape when spread thickly in the pans. Too much liquid thins the batter, so it spreads out and bakes with a weaker structure.

“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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