Skip to main content
Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A sweet yeast-based cake flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Coffee 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the bread sponge, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet milk, butter, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

  3. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, then knead it down.

Shape and rise

  1. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick and place it in bread pans.

  2. Allow the dough to rise again.

Top and bake

  1. Brush the top with beaten egg, then sprinkle generously with sugar and dust with cinnamon.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread sponge
Provides the yeast-leavened base that makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the crumb set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled before kneading. The rise is what leavens the dough and gives the cake its light texture. Kneading down too early leaves it dense, and a second rise before baking lets the shaped dough expand again.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes