Name: Blueberry Tea-cake
Ingredients: 3 cups blueberries; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup milk; 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted; 2 rounded teaspoons baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 eggs, beaten

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 ↓

Blueberry Tea-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten eggs, then mix in the milk and prepared flour.
Dredge the blueberries with a little flour and gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and serve

Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake until golden brown, then split, butter, and serve warm.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the cake crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust.
Blueberries: Add juicy pockets of fruit and flavor throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dredge the blueberries with flour before folding. Lightly coating the berries with flour helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking. Gentle folding keeps the batter airy so it rises evenly.

“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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Blueberry Tea-cake