Skip to main content
Main

Breakfast and Tea Cakes

A yeast-based roll made with potato yeast, lard, and butter, baked into soft, lightly sweetened cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Breakfast and Tea Cakes

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 dough

  1. Make a sponge with lukewarm batter and add potato yeast early in the morning.

  2. When the sponge is light, transfer it to a bread pan.

  3. Add salt, lard, and enough flour to form a soft dough.

  4. Mix well and set in a warm place to rise.

  5. Knead down and let rise again, repeating this process five or six times.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into small pieces and mold into rolls about 1 inch thick and 5 inches long.

  2. Roll in melted butter or sweet lard and place in well-greased baking pans.

  3. Press the rolls closely together, about ½ inch wide.

  4. Let rise for a short time and bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  5. If the tops brown too quickly, cover with paper.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Potato yeast
Leavens the sponge and dough so the rolls rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and moistens the dough.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the soft dough its structure.
Butter or sweet lard
Coats the rolls, adding richness and helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Covering the tops if they brown too quickly. Sugars and proteins on the surface brown fast at 400°F, so the crust can darken before the interior is fully baked. A paper cover shields the surface while heat reaches the center.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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.

More tea cakes recipes

Yorkshire 31Cream 8Afternoon 7Berry 7English 7Queen's 3 See all 209 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes