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 ↓
Spider-cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar together.
Chop the butter into the flour and mix to form a stiff dough using the milk or cold water.
If using sour milk, omit the baking soda and cream of tartar, and dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.
Cook the cakes
Preheat two well-buttered iron skillets or a large griddle over medium heat.
Shape the dough into two round cakes and place them in the buttered pans.
Cook slowly, lifting the cakes frequently to prevent burning.
Once the underside is browned, flip the cakes to brown the other side.
Finish and serve
When done, split the cakes, butter them, reassemble, cut into quarters, and serve hot.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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 structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, tenderising the stiff dough and browning the cakes.
- Milk
- Provides the moisture that binds the flour into a stiff dough.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic salt that reacts with baking soda to produce rising and lightness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acid in the dough or sour milk to produce carbon dioxide for rising.
The step that matters
Cook slowly and lift the cakes frequently. Thick dough cooks through slowly over medium heat, and the sugars and starches on the surface brown and burn quickly if the heat is too high or the cakes sit still, so the cakes must be turned and lifted to brown evenly without scorching.
“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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