Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
Milk Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Boil the milk with the salt and cinnamon.
Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks.
Slowly pour a little hot milk into the egg yolks while stirring to temper them.
Gradually add the tempered egg mixture back into the pot of milk, stirring continuously.
Serve
Serve hot with the thin slices of bread added to the soup.
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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Cinnamon + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,705 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavors.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the milk into a custard-like soup as they gently set with heat.
- Bread
- Soaks up the warm milk and eggs, adding body and a soft texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the salt and cinnamon.
The step that matters
Tempering the egg yolks. Adding hot milk to the yolks slowly, while stirring, warms them gradually so they do not scramble. Adding the eggs straight into the hot pot would cause curdling.
“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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