Skip to main content
Dessert

Tea-cakes

A yeasted cake made with flour, butter, egg, and milk, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Tea-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.

  2. Rub in the butter, margarine, or lard until well mixed.

  3. Make a well in the center, pour in the yeast dissolved in a little warm milk, and add the egg.

  4. Gradually add enough warm milk to form a smooth paste and knead well.

  5. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into cakes and place them in tins.

  2. Allow the cakes to rise again before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

  4. Serve warm, buttered, and enjoy immediately.

Stale cakes

  1. For stale cakes, split and toast or dip in milk or water and reheat in the 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. 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Butter, margarine, or lard
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough.
Distillery yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise, giving the cakes their light texture.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs a warm place and enough time to produce gas; underproofed dough stays dense and heavy, while the gluten network needs room to stretch and trap that gas.

“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.

More tea cakes recipes

Yorkshire 31Cream 8Afternoon 7Berry 7English 7Queen's 3 See all 209 →

You might also like

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