Name: Infants’ Diet
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons cream; 1 tablespoon cow's milk; 2 tablespoons lime water; 3 tablespoons milk-sugar water

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Infants’ Diet

Ingredients

2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon cow's milk
2 tablespoons lime water
3 tablespoons milk-sugar water

Directions

Prepare the mixture

Mix the cream, cow's milk, lime water, and milk-sugar water together.

Feed the baby

Give one quarter of this mixture every two hours during the day.
After the baby is a week old, increase the amount to one-half at each meal.
At two months, give the whole amount.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + limetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together700 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,332 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cream: Adds fat for richness and a softer, creamier texture.
Cow's milk: Supplies the liquid base and milk proteins that give the mixture body.
Milk-sugar water: Adds sweetness from lactose, the natural sugar in milk.