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Keller’s Malt-soup

A simple malt soup made with wheat flour, milk, water, malt extract, and potassium bicarbonate, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Keller’s Malt-soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flour

  1. Soak the wheat flour in milk thoroughly.

  2. Rub the soaked flour through a sieve or strainer.

Make the malt mixture

  1. In a separate dish, combine water and malt extract, and dissolve at about 120°F (49°C).

  2. Add the potassium bicarbonate solution to the mixture.

Combine and boil

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Boil.

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.

  1. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + malttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + malttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

Wheat flour
Thickens the liquid and gives the soup body as its starch hydrates.
Malt extract
Adds sweetness and a malty flavor.
Milk
Adds richness and moisture to the soup.
Potassium bicarbonate
Raises the pH of the mixture, which affects flavor and color.

The step that matters

Rub the soaked flour through a sieve or strainer. Soaking alone leaves lumps of flour that do not hydrate evenly. Pressing the soaked flour through a sieve breaks these up, so the starch disperses smoothly into the milk and the soup cooks to an even texture.

“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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