Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 78,219 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Julia Denk
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream one cup sugar with two level tablespoons butter.
Add beaten yolk of one egg.
Add one-fourth cup milk.
Add one-fourth cup water.
Add two cups flour sifted with two teaspoons baking powder.
Bake and finish
Flavor to taste, then add beaten white of egg.
Bake in muffin tins.
Cover with any desired icing.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 78,219 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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, traps air that lightens the crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and protein that set the batter into a cake structure as it bakes.
- Egg
- Yolk adds richness and binding; the whipped white adds lift and structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise in the oven.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and tenderness and helps the batter come together smoothly.
The step that matters
Adding the beaten egg white. Beaten whites hold air that gives the cakes lift. Stirring too hard after adding them deflates that air, leaving dense, flat cakes, so fold gently and bake promptly.
“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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