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Dessert

German Coffee Cake

A yeasted batter cake with lemon rind, dusted with sugar and cinnamon, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Coffee Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast cake in warm water.

  2. Add it to the scalded and cooled milk, along with enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Let the mixture rise until light and bubbly.

  4. Add melted butter, sugar, salt, beaten egg, lemon rind, and more flour to make a stiff batter.

  5. Beat well and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread the batter in a greased baking pan, cover, and let rise again.

  2. Once risen, brush the top with beaten egg and dust with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Yeast cake
Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes it rise light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the risen batter together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and its beaten coating helps the top brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning on the topping.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until doubled. Yeast needs time to build gas and stretch the gluten. Rising too short leaves a dense cake, while over-proofing can collapse the structure and make it heavy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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