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King Cake

"This a sweet bread that is made during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It has a cream cheese filling and a simple glaze. A tiny plastic baby baked into the bread and will bring good luck to whoever finds it."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

1 ring shaped loaf
Prep30 min
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Stir the yeast into the warm milk with a spoonful of the white sugar and let it foam for about 10 minutes.

  2. Whisk in the melted butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, nutmeg and remaining white sugar. Add the flour and salt and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.

  3. Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

  4. Beat the cream cheese with the 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar until smooth and fluffy to make the filling.

  5. Punch the dough down and roll it into a large rectangle. Spread the cream cheese filling over it, leaving a border.

  6. Roll the dough up from the long side, pinch the seam shut, and form it into a ring on a greased baking sheet. Pinch the ends together and let rise for 30 minutes.

  7. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes, until deep golden and cooked through. Cool on the sheet for 10 minutes, then move to a rack.

  8. Whisk the 2 cups confectioners' sugar with the lemon juice and 2 tablespoons milk until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled ring and scatter the multicolored sprinkles on top before the glaze sets.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cream cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + cream cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,411 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, egg, flour, nutmeg, cream cheese):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Coconutabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Blueberryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, egg, flour, nutmeg, cream cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).