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Yorkshire Tea Cakes

Yorkshire Tea Cakes are yeast-leavened cakes made with flour, salt, yeast, sugar, butter, milk, and egg, baked in tins.

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 good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a basin, combine the flour and salt.

  2. Cream the yeast and sugar until liquid.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the milk, and heat until just tepid.

  4. Pour the milk mixture onto the yeast and add the beaten egg.

  5. Stir this mixture into the flour and mix to form a dough.

  6. Divide the dough into two round cakes.

Prove and bake

  1. Grease two small cake tins with dripping and place the cakes in them.

  2. Let the cakes rise in a warm place until they reach the top of the tins.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 dough's structure once mixed with the liquids.
German yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, tender crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps hydrate the flour into dough.

The step that matters

Let the cakes rise until they reach the top of the tins. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce gas; rising fully gives a light crumb, while underproofed cakes stay dense and overproofed ones may collapse or turn coarse 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.

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