Name: Artificial Human Milks
Ingredients: 3 ounces (about ⅜ cup) of sugar of milk; ½ pint (1 cup) of warm whey; ½ pint (1 cup) of fresh cow's milk; ¾ pint (1 ½ cups) of boiling water

Why it works: Sugar and whey work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Artificial Human Milks

Ingredients

3 ounces (about ⅜ cup) of sugar of milk
½ pint (1 cup) of warm whey
½ pint (1 cup) of fresh cow's milk
¾ pint (1 ½ cups) of boiling water

Directions

Dissolve 3 ounces of sugar of milk in ¾ pint of boiling water.
Mix the dissolved sugar of milk with ½ pint of fresh cow's milk.
For a simpler version, use water at 160°F instead of boiling water.

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.

Sugar + wheytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + wheytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together63 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sugar of milk: Provides the lactose sugar that gives the mixture its sweetness and mimics the sugar in human milk.
Fresh cow's milk: Supplies the milk fat and proteins that give the mixture body and a creamy texture.
Warm whey: Adds milk proteins and liquid that help the mixture resemble breast milk more closely.

“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.