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 ↓
Fedekal Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and butter until well combined.
Make the dough
Add the eggs, lemon juice, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Dissolve the mixture in enough milk to form a dough.
Shape and bake
Cut the dough into diamond shapes.
Place the diamond-shaped cakes on a baking sheet and bake until golden.
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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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).
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 as its starch sets during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the dough, working with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
The step that matters
Dissolve the mixture in enough milk to form a dough. Too much milk makes the dough slack and spreading, so the cut diamonds lose their shape. Add milk gradually until the dough just holds together, since flour hydrates and firms as it rests.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, 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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