Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
German Tea Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Mash the hard-boiled yolks until smooth.
In a bowl, combine the butter, sugar, whisky, flour, and mashed yolks.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin and sprinkle sugar over it.
Cut into desired shapes and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + whiskytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together335 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the cookie-like dough a tender texture.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the rolled dough together as it bakes.
- Hard-boiled egg yolks
- Add richness and a fine, crumbly tenderness to the dough.
- Raw eggs
- Bind the dough and add moisture and structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
The step that matters
Roll the dough thin. Thin dough bakes evenly and crisps through, while thick dough can stay soft and raw in the middle. Even thickness also keeps the cut shapes baking at the same rate.
“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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