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Dessert

Dutch Coffee Cake

A quick coffee cake made with flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, salt, egg, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Dutch 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 batter

  1. Mix and sift the dry ingredients.

  2. Rub in the butter.

  3. Beat the egg and add enough milk to make 1 cup.

  4. Stir the milk mixture into the dry ingredients.

Top and bake

  1. Turn the batter into a shallow buttered pan.

  2. Brush the top with melted butter.

  3. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of sugar mixed with ¼ teaspoon cinnamon.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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 main structure of the cake as the proteins set during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the crumb structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richness, and browns the top.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir just until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of soft.

“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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