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 ↓
Puff 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. 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the milk and flavoring.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.
Bake
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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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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
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so the baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
The step that matters
Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Gradually adding dry ingredients and mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing toughens the crumb and can knock out the gas that helps it rise.
“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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