Name: Des Moines Crumpets
Ingredients: three cups of raised dough; one-half cup of butter beaten to a cream; three eggs; one coflfeecup of milk

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Des Moines Crumpets

Ingredients

three cups of raised dough
one-half cup of butter beaten to a cream
three eggs
one coflfeecup of milk

Directions

Pour the batter into buttered pans and let rise for half an hour.
Bake until done.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

380Calories

15 gProtein

30 gFat

13 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raised dough: Forms the base batter and provides the structure and gas-trapping network for the crumpets.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and helps keep the crumb tender and the pans from sticking.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it cooks.
Milk: Adds moisture and softness, loosening the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise. The rise lets yeast gases expand the batter and form the open holes that give crumpets their texture. Rising too short leaves them dense, and rising too long can cause them to collapse.

“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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Des Moines Crumpets