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 ↓
Flour Ball
Ingredients
Directions
Make the flour ball
Mix the flour, salt, and sugar of milk together in a bowl.
Tie the mixture tightly in a muslin cloth or pudding bag to form a firm ball.
Boil the ball in a kettle of water from morning until bedtime.
Remove the ball and hang it up to drain and dry.
The next day, peel off the outer layer of dough to reveal a hard, solid ball.
Dry the ball in the sun or in a low oven.
Use the ball
When needed, shave off 2-3 teaspoons from the ball, mix with a little water to form a paste, and stir into 1 pint of milk.
Scald the milk mixture, being careful not to let it boil.
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough that cooks into the hard, solid ball.
- Sugar of milk
- Adds a mild sweetness to the dough.
The step that matters
Scald the milk mixture without boiling it. Milk that boils can scorch on the bottom of the pan and may curdle or form a skin, so heating it just until steaming keeps it smooth.
“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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