Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with butter, milk, sugar, lemon rind, and almond topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  2. Add lukewarm milk and 1½ cups of flour to make a sponge.

  3. Beat until light and let rise.

Make the dough

  1. Add ⅓ cup melted butter, ¼ cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 beaten egg, and grated lemon rind.

  2. Add flour to form a firm dough.

  3. Knead the dough.

Shape, top and bake

  1. Place the dough in a greased pan.

  2. Let rise again until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

  3. Sprinkle the top with chopped almonds.

  4. Brush with remaining beaten egg.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 to 50 minutes.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 sponge and firm dough that gives the cake its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg
Adds richness and structure, and its beaten portion gives the top a glossy browned finish.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.

The step that matters

Let rise again until doubled in bulk. Yeast needs enough time to build gas and stretch the gluten network. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse or lose its structure in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, milk, flour, almond. 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 coffee cake recipes

German 56Filling 7Apple 4Chocolate 3Dutch 3 See all 347 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes