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Dessert

Coffee Cake

A yeasted sweet cake with butter, sugar, and cinnamon topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Coffee Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Soak the yeast cake in 1 cup of warm milk.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the soaked yeast, flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and salt.

  3. Mix until well combined, then add enough milk to make a soft dough.

  4. Knead the dough for 20 minutes until smooth.

Top and bake

  1. For the topping, mix ½ cup of butter, ½ cup of sugar, and 3 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Sprinkle cinnamon on top of the cake before baking.

  3. Place the dough in a greased pan and let it rise until doubled in size.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cake together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Yeast cake
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in both the dough and topping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the topping and crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The yeast needs time to produce enough gas to leaven the dough. Rising too short leaves the cake dense, while over-proofing can cause it to collapse 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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