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 ↓
Cup Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the batter
Cream the butter (or lard) with the sugar.
Grate in the lemon peel and beat in the egg yolks.
Sift in the flour, adding just enough milk to make a very thick batter.
Whip the egg whites until firm and fold them into the batter.
Add the salt and baking powder.
Bake
Pour the batter into a buttered tin and bake at 400°F (200°C).
Cover the cake with a piece of cardboard for the first part of baking to prevent heavy streaks.
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 + flourtop 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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while tenderising the crumb.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to firm foam that lifts the batter and sets as it bakes.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, moisture and emulsifying fat that helps the batter hold together.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake as its starch gelatinises and proteins firm.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated and wet, making the cake rise and become light.
The step that matters
Fold the whipped egg whites into the batter. Whites hold air only when whipped firm, and gentle folding keeps that air in. Overmixing knocks it out, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, 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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