Name: To Color Butter
Ingredients: 1 large yellow carrot; 2 quarts new milk; cream (amount as needed)

Why it works: Milk and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Color Butter

Ingredients

1 large yellow carrot
2 quarts new milk
cream (amount as needed)

Directions

Make the carrot milk

Scrape the carrot into a tin vessel with the milk.
Let it simmer for 1 hour.

Finish for churning

When cool, strain the mixture into the cream just before churning.
Adjust the quantity of carrot based on the amount of cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Carrot + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Carrot + creamtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,215 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrot: Supplies the yellow-orange color that tints the butter as the fat takes it up.
Milk: Carries the carrot's color into the cream and gives the liquid base for the mixture.
Cream: Provides the butterfat that is churned into butter and takes on the carrot color.