Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Pap of Unbolted Flour
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the unbleached flour with cold water until it is as thick as cream.
Stir the mixture into the boiling water and let it simmer until clear.
Add salt and beat well before removing from heat.
Stir in the cream and sweeten with sugar to taste.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Unbolted flour
- Thickens the porridge as its starch swells and sets when heated in water.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, soft body to the finished porridge.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness, adjusted to taste at the end.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour with cold water first. Flour added dry or stirred unevenly into hot water clumps, because the outer layer of each starch granule gels before the inside is wetted. Blending it smooth in cold water first lets the granules disperse evenly so the porridge cooks without lumps.
“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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