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Drink

Buttermilk Pop

A warm drink made by boiling buttermilk, adding a beaten egg, salt, and flour, then serving with sugar or maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pop

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pop

  1. Boil the buttermilk in a pot.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg, salt, and flour together.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the boiling buttermilk.

  4. Stir briskly and boil for 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with sugar or maple syrup.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk
Forms the liquid base that the egg mixture thickens into a soft, custard-like pop.
Egg
Sets when heated, thickening the buttermilk and giving the pop its body.
All-purpose flour
Helps stabilize the egg mixture so it thickens smoothly rather than curdling into lumps.

The step that matters

Stir briskly when adding the egg mixture. Pouring the egg into boiling buttermilk can cause it to curdle into lumps if not stirred vigorously. Constant stirring disperses the egg and flour evenly so the mixture sets smooth.

“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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