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Dessert

Yarra Coffee Cake

A sweet yeast cake made with mashed potatoes, milk, sugar, egg, butter, lard, and flour, topped with cinnamon and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Yarra 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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine mashed potatoes, lukewarm milk, white sugar, egg, and dissolved yeast in a bowl.

  2. Add sifted flour to make a batter and beat well.

  3. Let rise overnight.

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, add melted butter and lard, salt, and enough flour to make a dough.

  2. Knead until smooth.

  3. Let rise until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to about ½ inch thick and place in a pan.

  2. Let rise again.

  3. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and white sugar.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and body, helping the dough stay soft and tender.
Yeast cake
Produces gas during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the cake its frame.
Butter and lard
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the crumb feel soft.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping bind the batter and enrich the crumb.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise overnight. The long slow rise lets the yeast ferment fully, building flavour and gas. Too short a rise leaves the dough dense; the dough should be bubbly and expanded before the next step.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, flour, butter, 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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