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Dessert

French Coffee Cake

A yeasted cake with lemon peel, sultanas, almonds, citron, and stiff‑beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Coffee Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yeast

  1. Soak the yeast in 2 tablespoons of lukewarm water with a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Set aside to rise.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together, stirring constantly in one direction.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time and the grated lemon peel.

  3. In a bowl, sift the flour and make a hole in the center. Pour in the yeast and lukewarm milk, then stir to make a light batter.

  4. Combine the creamed mixture with the batter until it forms bubbles and cleans the bowl.

  5. Fold in the sultanas, pounded almonds, finely chopped citron, and the stiff-beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Fill a greased cake pan with the batter, let it rise in a warm place, and bake slowly, covered at first.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten stiff, lighten it for a tender crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender, fine texture.
Compressed yeast
Leavens the batter so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Milk
Moistens the flour and yeast into a batter and adds softness.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff-beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently to keep the cake airy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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