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Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with a sweet cinnamon-sugar topping, baked at 350°F for 35 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

German Coffee Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Cover the yeast with cold water.

  2. Beat the eggs until light.

  3. Heat the milk until scalding hot; pour it over the beaten eggs.

  4. Add the sugar and salt, and let it cool to about 80°F (27°C).

  5. Add the yeast and enough flour to make a soft dough.

  6. Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead until smooth.

  7. Place the dough in a buttered bowl, cover, and let it rise for 3 hours or until light.

Enrich and shape

  1. Soften the butter and mix it thoroughly into the dough.

  2. Allow the dough to rise again for 2 hours.

  3. Roll the dough into a sheet 1 inch thick and place it in a buttered pan.

  4. Spread with melted butter, then dredge with sugar and cinnamon.

  5. Let it rise for 1 hour.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

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 + 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 cakes
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the soft dough, helping it hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough, enriching its texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and browns the top of the cake.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.

The step that matters

Cooling the scalded milk mixture before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the milk and egg mixture must cool to about 80°F before the yeast goes in, or the dough will fail to rise.

“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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