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Dessert

Yorkshire Tea Cakes

A small yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, egg, milk, yeast, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Yorkshire Tea Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Make a well in the center, sprinkle in the sugar, and drop in the egg.

  3. Mix the yeast and sugar in a bowl.

  4. Heat the milk until just tepid, then pour it over the yeast.

  5. Strain the mixture into the flour and egg, and work into a light dough.

  6. Divide the dough into two parts.

Shape and rise

  1. Grease two small tins with a little butter and place one cake in each tin.

  2. Cover with thin paper and let rise near a warm stove for about an hour, until they have tripled in size.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for fifteen minutes.

  2. Serve plain or toasted with butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 dough as its proteins develop into gluten.
Egg
Adds structure, binding and richness to the dough.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness, and warms the yeast to get it active.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and keeps the cakes from sticking to the tins.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to speed rising and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Heating the milk until just tepid. Yeast is a living organism that works best at warm, not hot, temperatures. Milk that is too hot kills the yeast, so the dough will not rise properly, while cold milk slows fermentation.

“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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