Name: Pan Egg Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup sifted meal; ½ cup boiling water; 1 teaspoon butter; salt to taste; ½ cup sweet milk; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking powder

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 ↓

Pan Egg Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Scald the sifted meal with boiling water.
Add butter and salt to taste.
Thin the mixture with sweet milk.
Beat together the eggs and add to the mixture.
Stir in the baking powder.

Bake

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Meal: Forms the body of the bread, and scalding softens its starch so it absorbs liquid.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure, richness and moisture as they set in the heat.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the bread rise and become lighter.
Butter: Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavour.
Sweet milk: Thins the batter and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.

“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.