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 ↓
Feied Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Cream the sugar and butter together.
Add the eggs and sweet milk, mixing well.
Stir in the baking soda and cream of tartar (or baking powder).
Fry the cakes
Roll the dough to ½ inch thick.
Heat lard in a pan and fry the cakes until golden brown.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the dough together.
- Sweet milk
- Provides moisture so the dough comes together as a soft dough.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar or baking powder to make the cakes rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce lift.
The step that matters
Frying the cakes until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly; if it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and oily before they cook through.
“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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