Skip to main content
Dessert

Yorkshire Tea Cakes

Yorkshire Tea Cakes are sweet cakes made with flour, yeast, lard, butter, currants, sugar, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Yorkshire Tea Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, rub the butter and lard into the flour.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in a little lukewarm water.

  4. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the yeast.

  5. Add the slightly warmed milk and sprinkle the salt around the edge.

  6. Let the mixture sponge for 30 minutes.

  7. Warm the sugar and currants, then add them to the mixture.

  8. Knead the dough and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into cakes and place them on a greased baking tray.

  2. Allow the cakes to rise again.

  3. Bake for about 10 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. Butter + milktop 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the cakes rise.
Butter and lard
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, which tenderises the crumb and softens texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar, adding moisture and richness to the dough.
Currants
Add sweetness and fruit flavour distributed through the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled, then the cakes rise again. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas. Underproofed dough stays dense and heavy, while the second rise lets the shaped cakes expand before baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes