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 ↓
Plain Stollen
Ingredients
Directions
Make a light sponge with 1½ quarts of milk and the yeast.
When the sponge is ready, add the remaining ½ quart of milk, sugar, eggs, and flavorings.
Incorporate the butter and mix to form a medium firm dough.
Work in the fruit, let it rise, then knead again.
Scale the dough and proceed with baking as in other recipes.
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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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Currant + macetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,791 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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, raisin, currant, lemon):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, raisin, currant, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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