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Dessert

Moravian Coffee Cake

A sweet yeast cake with mashed potatoes, butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar, baked and served with coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Moravian Coffee Cake

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine warm mashed potatoes, homemade yeast, and white sugar in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture rise.

  3. Mix in the egg and melted butter.

  4. Add enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the dough into pans.

  2. Smooth the dough with your hand.

  3. Let the dough rise until very light.

  4. Make deep holes in the surface with your thumb.

  5. In each hole, place a small lump of butter, a pinch of cinnamon, and a generous amount of light brown sugar.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  7. Serve with coffee.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the dough.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas for the dough to expand. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the rise sets the light, airy texture of the cake.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, 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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