Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Love Knots
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar.
Dissolve the baking soda in cold water and add to the mixture.
Melt the butter and incorporate it into the mixture.
Gradually add flour until a dough forms.
Shape and fry
Roll out the dough and cut it into strips.
Tie the strips into love knots.
Fry the knots in hot lard until golden brown.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Baking soda
- Lightens the dough and helps it puff and brown when fried.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure once mixed with the wet ingredients.
The step that matters
Fry the knots in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the knots absorb oil and turn greasy and pale. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the knots brown evenly and stay crisp.
“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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