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 ↓
Hop Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Boil ½ cup of hot water in 2 quarts of water for 5 minutes, then strain and pour over the grated potatoes, sugar, and salt.
Boil the mixture together for 3 minutes, then let it cool.
Once cool, add 1 cup of egg yolks and mix well.
In a large bowl, combine 2 quarts of flour, butter, lard, and ⅔ cup of yeast.
Mix with 1 pint of scalded milk until well combined.
Knead the dough for 20 minutes, then let it rise until doubled in size.
In the morning, shape the dough and let it rise again until light.
Bake in a moderately heated oven (350°F or 175°C) until golden.
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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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + walnuttop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together342 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (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 + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 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
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sugar, flour, butter, milk):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Milletfits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, flour, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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