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Yorkshire Tea Cakes

A yeasted cake made with flour, lard or butter, milk, yeast, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

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

10 portions
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. Mix the flour and salt, then rub the lard into it.

  2. Dissolve the yeast with the sugar, add it to ½ pint of the warm milk, and pour it into the center of the flour.

  3. Mix slightly, sprinkle a little dry flour over the top, and let it stand in a warm place for 1 hour to rise.

  4. Knead well, adding the rest of the warm milk with the baking powder, and set it to rise for another hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide into 10 portions, roll each into a round cake, and place them on warm floured tins to rise for 1 hour.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 to 45 minutes.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise, giving the cakes a light, airy crumb.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and activates the yeast.
Baking powder
Adds extra lift so the cakes rise further in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping and baking. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the warm rest lets gluten relax so the cakes shape easily and rise well 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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