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Breakfast Vanities

A small square of dough fried in boiling lard, served with optional maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Breakfast Vanities

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix and sift together the pastry flour, cream of tartar, and baking powder.

  2. Add enough milk to form a stiff dough.

  3. Roll out the dough very thin on a floured board.

  4. Cut into small squares with a sharp knife or pastry wheel.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop the squares into boiling lard, shaking the kettle gently to help them rise.

  2. When puffed up, turn them to brown the other side.

  3. Drain on paper and serve with maple syrup if desired.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + maple syruptop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Cream + maple syruptop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Pastry flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with milk.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the leavening for lift.
Cleveland's baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the squares puff in the hot fat.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff dough.
Boiling lard
Fries the squares quickly, setting the dough and browning its surface.

The step that matters

Drop the squares into boiling lard and shake the kettle gently. The fat must be hot enough to set the dough quickly and produce steam for puffing. Gentle shaking keeps the squares from sticking and helps them rise evenly.

“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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