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Dessert

German Coffee Bread

A yeasted bread with raisins, topped with a sweet cinnamon butter glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German Coffee Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine scalded milk, butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add the dissolved yeast cake and beaten egg to the lukewarm mixture.

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  4. Fold in the raisins.

  5. Cover the bowl and let the mixture rise overnight.

Shape and top

  1. In the morning, spread the batter in a buttered baking pan to a thickness of ½ inch.

  2. Cover and let it rise again.

  3. Before baking, brush the top with a beaten egg.

  4. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter.

  5. Mix in ⅓ cup sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

  6. Stir in 3 tablespoons of flour.

  7. Spread the mixture over the dough.

Bake

  1. Bake 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the stiff batter structure that holds the bread's crumb together.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough and gives the top a glossy golden finish.
Yeast cake
Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, and helps the topping caramelize and brown.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture through the bread.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. The dough needs enough time for the yeast to produce gas and build volume. Under-rising leaves a dense loaf, while the slow overnight rise develops flavor and an open 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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