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Dessert

Yorkshire Tea Cake

A yeasted cake made with flour, yeast, sugar, butter, milk, and egg, baked and glazed with milk and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a warm bowl.

  2. Cream the yeast and sugar.

  3. Melt the butter and add the milk to make it tepid.

  4. Beat the egg.

  5. Add the tepid milk.

  6. Mix it with the yeast.

  7. Strain the mixture into the flour.

  8. Mix to form a dough with your hands.

Shape and rise

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured board.

  2. Divide it into 2 or 3 pieces.

  3. Knead slightly.

  4. Shape each piece smooth on top.

  5. Place in a greased ring on a baking sheet.

  6. Cover.

  7. Set in a warm place for 1 hour until risen to the top of the tins.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. While hot, glaze with a mixture of milk and sugar.

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
Provides the structure that the dough's gluten network builds around.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it a light texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture to form the dough and, in the glaze, sweetness and a sheen.
Egg
Adds richness and moisture, and helps bind the dough.

The step that matters

Warming the milk to tepid. Yeast is killed by hot liquid and works slowly in cold liquid. Milk that is only lukewarm lets the yeast become active and the dough rise evenly.

“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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