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 Cakes
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, beat the eggs well.
Add brown sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar; mix until a stiff dough forms.
Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.
Sift ground cinnamon evenly over the dough.
Roll the dough up like a jelly roll.
Cut slices about ½ inch thick from the roll.
Bake
Drop the slices into granulated sugar, sugared side up.
Bake thoroughly until golden.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they beat in.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas for rising.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that works with baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and gives a deeper, caramel-like flavor.
The step that matters
Bake thoroughly until golden. Baking soda and cream of tartar react as soon as they are mixed, so the dough should be shaped and baked promptly. Underbaking leaves a gummy center, while the sugared exterior browns quickly and can look done before the interior sets.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream):
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Cinnamonthe original
- Tarragonfits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream. 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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