Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Wine Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Combine sweet milk and beaten eggs in a bowl.
Add flour gradually until a thick batter is achieved.
Fry and serve
Heat lard in a frying pan.
Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard, shaking your hand to create shapes.
Fry until golden brown.
Serve warm with wine and sugar or sweet cream.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the hot fat.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and eggs into a batter that holds its shape when fried.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.
- Lard
- Fries the batter, conducting heat to brown and crisp the outside.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls into hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the batter quickly on contact. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease, turn heavy, and fail to form their shapes.
“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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