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Dessert

Federal Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake made with milk, eggs, butter, and flour, baked and served with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Federal Cake

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 ↓

Federal 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. Scald the milk and let it cool until lukewarm.

  2. Stir in the yeast, eggs, and butter.

  3. Add enough flour to make a stiff batter that you can stir with a spoon.

  4. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise.

  5. Once risen, work the dough into pans and let it rise again.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. When baked, split the cakes into layers and spread with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

  3. Serve while hot.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake hold its shape as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavour.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the batter its stiff body and structure.
Milk
Provides moisture and proteins that add softness and browning to the crumb.

The step that matters

Letting the milk cool until lukewarm. Scalding denatures milk proteins, but if the milk is still hot when added, it can kill the live yeast and stop the dough from rising.

“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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