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Keller's Malt-soup

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

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

  1. Soak the wheat flour in milk thoroughly.

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

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

  4. Add the potassium bicarbonate solution to the malt mixture.

Cook

  1. Mix all ingredients together and 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
Provides starch that thickens the soup as it cooks and gives it body.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the flour so it can be rubbed through a sieve.
Malt extract
Adds sweetness and a toasty, malty flavor to the soup.
Potassium bicarbonate solution
Raises the alkalinity of the mixture, which darkens color and changes flavor.

The step that matters

Mix all ingredients together and boil. Starch in the flour thickens only as it heats and swells in liquid, so the mixture must reach a full boil and be stirred to keep it smooth and prevent lumps or scorching on the bottom of the pot.

“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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