Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Soft Short Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix sour cream and baking soda in a bowl.
Stir in flour until batter is slightly thicker than pancake batter.
Cook
Preheat a griddle and pour batter to form cakes.
Cook until golden brown on both sides.
Serve
Split each cake open, add milk and butter, and layer them.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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
- Sour cream
- Adds acidity and moisture, giving the cakes a tender crumb and a tangy flavor.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acid to release gas, making the cakes rise and lighten.
- Flour
- Provides structure, setting the batter into cakes as it cooks.
The step that matters
Stir in flour until just combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes the cakes tough rather than soft. The batter should stay a little thick so the cakes hold their shape on the griddle.
“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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