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 ↓
Tumbler Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Add the milk, flour, lemon extract, egg, and salt. Mix until smooth.
Melt the butter and fold it into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 cake together as it bakes.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and moisture to the crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
The step that matters
Fold in the melted butter. Melted butter should be folded in gently and only until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can toughen the cake, and the butter must be cooled enough not to deflate the batter.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, cream, flour, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream, flour, egg, butter. 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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