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 ↓
A Delicate Cake for Tea
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.
Beat the yolks until thick, then add sugar and milk.
Cream the butter and add it to the yolk mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Add the dry ingredients and bake
Sift the flour with baking soda and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the sifted mixture to the batter.
Pour into shallow pans.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter while beaten whites add lift and an airy crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas and help the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda react and stabilizing the whites.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to the right stage and folded gently. Overmixing deflates them, which reduces lift and leaves a denser cake.
“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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