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 ↓
Apple Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Mix salt and baking soda with the flour in a bowl, creating a well in the center.
Moisten the cornmeal with boiling water.
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Beat the egg yolks until frothy.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Combine the yolks, whites, cornmeal, and sugar mixture into the well in the flour.
Pour in the soured milk.
Stir until you have a batter.
Add the chopped apples.
Mix them throughout the batter.
Bake and serve
Butter a baking sheet or gem pans.
Fill them two-thirds full with the batter.
Bake until golden.
Serve warm with butter.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 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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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour and butter 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 main structure of the cake batter.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and the whites lighten the batter when beaten stiff.
- Soured milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic soured milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
- Sour apples
- Add moisture, tartness and fruity flavor throughout the cake.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that expands in the oven and lightens the batter. Under-beaten whites give a denser cake, and over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and collapse when folded in.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk. 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.
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