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 ↓
Coffee Cakes
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 dough
Cool the milk until lukewarm, then add the yeast cakes and dissolve them.
Add the remaining ingredients and beat thoroughly by hand for 10 minutes.
Let the mixture rise for 6 hours.
Refrigerate overnight.
Shape the cakes
In the morning, turn the dough onto a floured board and roll it into a rectangle ¼ inch thick.
Spread softened butter over the dough, then fold the sides toward the center to create three layers.
Cut the dough into pieces ¾ inch wide.
Cover the pieces and let them rise.
Take each piece, twist the ends in opposite directions, coil it, and bring the ends together at the top.
Bake and finish
Let the coiled pieces rise in pans and bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
Cool the cakes and brush them with a mixture of confectioners' sugar and boiling water, flavored with vanilla.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
- Yeast cakes
- Produce gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and forms layers when spread through the folded dough.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the yeast feed and brown the crust.
- Milk
- Provides moisture and softness to the dough.
The step that matters
Long rise after beating. The dough needs its full rise and overnight chill so the yeast builds gas and flavor and the gluten relaxes. Rushing it leaves the cakes dense and hard to shape.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter, sugar, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, sugar, flour. 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.
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