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Dessert

Sally Lunns Tea-cakes

A yeasted cake made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, salt, eggs, and optional milk or cream, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Sally Lunns Tea-cakes

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix warm milk with solid yeast until combined.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is the stiffness of hatter's paste.

  3. Cover and let it rise for 2 hours.

Enrich and knead

  1. In another bowl, rub together butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add remaining flour and mix well.

  3. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture, along with warm milk or cream if using.

  4. Knead into a dough that is slightly softer than bread dough.

  5. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into cakes and place on baking tins.

  2. Allow to rise again before baking in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 network that gives the cakes their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Warm milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour to form the dough.

The step that matters

Keep the dough slightly soft. Kneading to a dough softer than bread dough keeps the crumb tender. A stiffer dough gives dense, dry cakes and makes the rise less even.

“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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