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Dessert

Tea-cakes

A yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, butter or lard, egg, yeast, milk, and salt, baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a basin, combine the flour and salt, then rub in the butter or lard.

  2. Beat the egg well, stir in the yeast, and add to the flour mixture with enough warm milk to form a smooth paste.

  3. Knead the dough well and let it rise near a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into cakes and place them on baking tins.

  2. Let the cakes rise again for a few minutes before baking.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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 + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 holds the dough together as it rises and bakes.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich, short texture.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and set its structure when baked.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and gives moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time and a warm place to ferment fully. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the gas it traps is what gives the cakes their light texture.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Milletfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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