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 ↓
Caramel, Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, mix sugar, butter, flour, and baking powder with your hands.
Set aside 1 cup of the mixture.
Add eggs and sweet milk to the remaining mixture and combine well.
Bake
Pour the batter into a pan and sprinkle the reserved mixture on top.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 45 minutes.
Once done, leave the cake in the pan.
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.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Butter
- Adds fat that gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
The step that matters
Sprinkling the reserved mixture on top. The reserved dry mixture forms a crumbly topping that bakes into a crisp layer. Spreading it evenly keeps the top uniform rather than patchy.
“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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