Name: Short Cake
Ingredients: 1 quart of flour; 1 pint of thick sour milk; 1¼ teaspoons baking soda; ⅓ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 6 ounces of butter

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Short 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.

Make the dough

Combine the flour in a bowl and make a well in the center.
Add the sour milk, dissolved baking soda, salt, and softened butter.
Beat thoroughly.
Mix in all the flour.
Stir until a smooth mass forms.

Shape and bake

Place the dough on a floured board.
Roll out to about ⅓ inch thick.
Cut into small cakes.
Prick the cakes.
Bake at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to aid rising.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.

“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.