Skip to main content
Baking

Yeast Cake

A sweet yeast cake with currants, candied peel, and nutmeg.

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

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 ↓

Yeast Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with a pinch of salt.

  2. Dissolve the butter in the hot milk and let it cool until warm.

  3. Stir the milk mixture into the flour.

  4. Add the yeast and beaten eggs, then knead until smooth.

  5. Make two or three gashes on the surface, cover with a cloth, and let rise in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. Once risen, knead in the currants, sugar, candied peel, and nutmeg.

  2. Line a cake tin with buttered paper, allowing it to rise above the tin.

  3. Pour the mixture into the tin and let it rise for another 30 minutes.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1.5 hours, covering the surface with paper if needed.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 its gluten network sets during baking.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the cake a light, airy crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture pockets throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise before baking. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas; if the dough rises too little, the cake stays dense, and if it rises too long it can collapse or turn coarse.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

Rich 3 See all 43 →

You might also like

Currant CookiesCurrant Cookies8 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipes