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 ↓
Other German Zwieback
Ingredients
Directions
Warm the milk and dissolve the yeast in it to create a light sponge.
Once ready, mix in the remaining ingredients to form a smooth dough.
Let the dough rise and knead it twice.
Break the dough into small pieces, about ½ ounce each, and shape them into 3-inch long fingers.
Place the fingers close together on baking pans so they touch.
Allow the dough to proof well before baking.
After baking, let the zwieback cool for one day.
Slice the cooled zwieback and place the slices on pans.
Toast the slices until they are a nice brown color.
If the zwieback browns too quickly, cool it and return it to the oven to finish drying.
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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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, butter, lemon):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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