Skip to main content
Dessert

A Rick French Breakfast Cake or Sally Lunn

A yeasted cake made with flour, yeast, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Rick French Breakfast Cake or Sally Lunn

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the leaven

  1. Reserve 3 ounces of flour for leaven.

  2. Mix with yeast and warm cream or milk to form a paste.

  3. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes until doubled in size.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, make a hollow in the remaining flour.

  2. Add salt, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and warm cream.

  3. Mix until smooth.

  4. Flatten the mixture.

  5. Spread the leaven over it.

  6. Knead lightly until well combined.

  7. Place the dough in a well-buttered cake mold.

  8. Let it rise until doubled in size.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the top with beaten egg.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour, until lightly colored.

  3. Remove from the mold.

  4. Slice.

  5. Pour melted butter over the slices.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness, and help the crumb set softly.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The yeast needs enough time and warmth to fill the dough with gas. Under-proofing leaves a dense loaf, while over-proofing can cause it to collapse in the oven.

“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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes