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Dessert

Yorkshire Tea-Cakes

A yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, milk, butter, egg, and German yeast, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Yorkshire Tea-Cakes

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 ↓

Yorkshire Tea-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until warm.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in a basin with the warm milk.

  3. In a large basin, combine the flour and butter, rubbing them together.

  4. Beat the egg in a cup and add the beaten egg to the flour mixture.

  5. Strain the yeast and milk mixture into the basin.

  6. Mix the dough well with a wooden spoon.

  7. Flour a board and your hands, then turn the dough out onto the floured board.

  8. Knead the dough for 1–2 minutes.

  9. Use a floured knife to divide the dough into cakes.

Shape and rise

  1. Grease cake tins with dripping.

  2. Place the cakes inside the tins, filling them only ¾ full.

  3. Allow the cakes to rise near the fire for 1 hour.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake the tins in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Turn the cakes out of the tins.

  3. Cool the cakes on a sieve or chair.

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 + 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 dough's main structure once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds fat that tenderises the crumb.
Egg
Adds richness and binds the dough, supporting its structure.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the cakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Allowing the cakes to rise. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Rising too briefly or in a cold spot leaves the cakes dense, while the filling-to-three-quarters guideline leaves room for expansion.

“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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