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Dessert

Yorkshire Tea Cakes

Yorkshire tea cakes are small, yeasted cakes made with flour, yeast, sugar, salt, butter, milk, and egg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour and salt into a basin.

  2. Cream the yeast and sugar together.

  3. Melt the butter, add the milk, and warm it until tepid.

  4. Combine the warm milk mixture with the yeast and sugar, mixing well.

  5. Beat the egg and add it to the wet ingredients.

  6. Pour the wet mixture into the flour and beat well together.

Shape and rise

  1. Flour two round cake tins and form the mixture into two round cakes.

  2. Place one cake in each tin and set in a warm place to rise until it reaches the top of the tin.

  3. For buns, let the mixture rise in the basin for about an hour, then shape into round buns.

  4. Place the buns on a baking sheet in a warm place to prove for about 15 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  2. Bake the buns and brush with a mixture of butter and milk just before they are done.

  3. Serve the tea cakes sliced, toasted, and buttered, and the buns split, toasted, and buttered.

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. 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

Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the tea cakes and buns their body.
German yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps browning on the buns' surface.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and helps bind the dough.

The step that matters

Warming the milk until tepid. Liquid that is too hot can kill yeast, while liquid that is too cold slows fermentation. Warm, not hot, lets the yeast become active and raise the dough.

“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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