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Dessert

Breakfast or Tea Cakes Hot

A yeast-based roll made with flour, milk, butter, yeast, and egg, baked until golden.

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 or Tea Cakes Hot

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the milk until hot.

  2. In a cup, mix the yeast with a little cold water.

  3. Combine the yeast mixture with the warm milk and butter.

  4. Make a well in the flour, pour in the milk and yeast mixture, and stir until it forms a thick batter.

  5. Beat the egg and mix it into the batter.

  6. Cover the mixture and keep it warm until it rises slightly.

  7. Knead the dough well, then let it rise again until it has doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the dough into rolls and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the cakes.

  3. While hot, brush the tops with milk.

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. 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 structure of the dough as its proteins develop into gluten when kneaded.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps the crumb brown on the surface.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and give the cakes a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavour.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough gas for the dough to expand. Rising too little leaves dense cakes, while the dough needs enough kneading and proofing to build a light, even crumb.

“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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