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Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with raisins, butter, sugar, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk in a large bowl.

  2. Stir this mixture into the center of the flour in a pan.

  3. Once the mixture is light, add the butter, sugar, raisins, lemon zest, nutmeg, cinnamon, and additional flour as needed.

Shape and rise

  1. Transfer the batter to greased dripping pans or a shortcake pan.

  2. Let the batter rise until doubled in size.

Glaze and bake

  1. Brush the top with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Bake 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the dough so gas is produced and the batter rises and becomes light.
Flour
Provides the gluten structure that holds the risen dough together.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and enriches the flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Egg
Brushed on top to add color and a glossy, browned finish.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and warms the yeast to start fermentation.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until doubled in size. Yeast gas expands while the gluten network traps it, creating the light crumb. Rising too little leaves the cake dense, while over-proofing can cause it to collapse or bake unevenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sugar, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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