Name: How We Cook in Tennessee
Ingredients: one tablespoon butter; one cup sugar; two cups flour; one teaspoon baking powder; half cup sweet milk; one cup flour; one cup milk; half teaspoon baking powder; one teaspoon olive oil; one full pint of sifted flour; one tea- spoon of baking powder; one heaping tablespoonful of butter; one egg well in a cup; three layers as; one well beaten egg; one layer of cake; two cakes the same size; one over lightly; one egg; six bananas; 1 ft'^ tai k st hvfr lc 1 o 1 ali\ s 1 ui lis snl tnrhfip id & sons the ho; 1 ali\ s 1 ui lis snl tnrhfip id & sons the home telephone nrv cnnik uni b; salt

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 ↓

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).
Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,470 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Olive + bananatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together797 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 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

Flour: Forms the structure of the shortcake layers as it sets in the oven.
Butter: Is rubbed into the flour for a tender, crumbly texture, and spread on each layer.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the layers.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Sugar: Sweetens the berries and layers and draws out the berries' juices.

The step that matters

Bake in two or three layers as for cake. Thin, evenly sized layers bake through and rise evenly. Uneven or overly thick layers can stay gummy in the centre or brown unevenly.

Swap the banana

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

Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Figfits better
Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, milk, olive, tea, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Banana	1 medium (118g)	105
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Cake	not in our table	0

How We Cook in Tennessee