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Dessert

German Coffee Bread

A sweet yeast bread with raisins, flavored with milk, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German Coffee Bread

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 batter

  1. Heat the milk until scalding, but do not boil.

  2. Stir in cottage or butter, sugar, and salt while the milk is hot.

  3. Let the mixture cool to blood-warm, then add the dissolved yeast cake and flour to make a stiff batter.

  4. Cover the batter and let it rise until light.

  5. Fold in the cut raisins.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread the batter one-half inch thick in a buttered baking pan and cover to let it rise again.

  2. Brush the top with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, covering with thick paper for the first half of the baking time.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the stiff batter whose gluten structure traps gas and holds the bread's shape.
Yeast cake
Produces carbon dioxide during the rise, leavening the batter so it becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the dough, softening its crumb.
Cottolene or butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and contributes flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning on the topped surface.
Seeded raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the bread.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to leaven the stiff batter. Rising too briefly leaves a dense loaf, while the second rise after shaping gives the final airy texture.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon. 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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