Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Julia Denk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Mix and sift flour and soda, cream the butter, add the sugar and beat thoroughly.
Beat yolks with a Dover beater; when half beaten, add cream of tartar and beat to stiff froth.
Add the frothy yolks to the creamed butter and sugar mixture and stir well.
Add milk and flour alternately with the flavoring, stirring thoroughly.
Bake
Place batter in a greased pan, bake in a moderate oven for twenty to thirty minutes.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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 are beaten to a stiff froth, lightening the batter and adding structure as it sets.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the beaten yolks, helping them hold a stiff, stable foam.
- Soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batch to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter for a tender crumb and adds sweetness.
- Pastry flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
The step that matters
Beating the yolks to stiff froth. Yolks must be beaten until they hold a stiff foam before folding in; under-beaten yolks give less lift, and over-beaten ones can collapse and deflate the batter.
“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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