Name: Chocolate Cream Fritters
Ingredients: 4 ounces cornstarch; 1 quart milk; Butter for greasing; Thin batter (or beaten eggs and bread or cracker crumbs for coating)

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 ↓

Chocolate Cream Fritters

Ingredients

4 ounces cornstarch
1 quart milk
Butter for greasing
Thin batter (or beaten eggs and bread or cracker crumbs for coating)

Directions

Make pastry cream by mixing cornstarch with milk and cooking until thick.
Pour the hot cream into a buttered flat pan to a thickness of 1.5 inches and let it cool without stirring.
Once firm, warm the pan slightly and turn the cream onto a board, cutting it into 2-inch squares or diamonds.
Dip each piece in thin batter or beaten eggs, then roll in bread or cracker crumbs if desired.
Fry the fritters in hot oil until they are lightly colored.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).