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Breakfast

Breakfast Cake

A yeast-based batter of eggs, milk, butter, salt, and flour cooked like a cake for breakfast.

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 ↓

Breakfast Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs separately.

  2. Stir in the milk, melted butter, salt, and yeast.

  3. Add enough flour to create a thick batter.

Rest and cook

  1. Prepare the batter late at night.

  2. Cook the batter in the morning like buckwheat cakes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provide structure and richness, helping the cakes hold together when cooked.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour forms a pourable batter.
Butter
Adds fat, which contributes tenderness and flavor to the cakes.
Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes the cakes rise and become airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cakes their body and structure.

The step that matters

Prepare the batter late at night. Yeast needs time to ferment before cooking. Its activity produces carbon dioxide gas that leavens the batter, so letting it stand overnight is what makes the cakes rise in the morning.

“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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