Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Butter Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.
Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add enough water to form a soft dough.
Shape and cook
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and cut into round cakes.
Cook on a greased griddle over moderate heat until golden brown on both sides.
Serve
Serve warm with butter.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cakes their structure.
- Butter
- Coats flour particles, giving the cakes a tender, crumbly texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
The step that matters
Cook on a greased griddle over moderate heat until golden brown on both sides.. Moderate heat lets the centre cook through while the outside browns through Maillard reactions. Too much heat scorches the surface before the inside sets.
“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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