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 ↓
New York Breakfast Cakes
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sugar.
In another bowl, mix milk, melted butter, and egg.
Mix and bake
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Pour batter onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or 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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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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Cream + sugartop 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cakes their structure.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to produce lift and a tender crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
- Egg
- Adds structure and binding to hold the batter together.
The step that matters
Stir until just combined. Overmixing the batter develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes tough and dense. Stopping once the dry ingredients are moistened keeps the texture tender, and the leavening reaction starts as soon as wet and dry ingredients meet, so the batter should go into the oven promptly.
“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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