Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Cincinnati Cream Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Combine half of the milk, butter, sugar, nutmeg, and salt in a skillet over low heat.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Mix flour, baking powder, and the other half of the milk until smooth.
Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk until it forms a smooth dough.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Add the eggs
Beat the egg yolks.
Stir the beaten yolks into the cooled mixture.
Beat the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
Bake and fill
Spoon a dessert spoonful of the mixture into each well-buttered muffin pan.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes until dark yellow.
Open each cake at the side with a sharp knife.
Fill each cake with a heaped teaspoon of cream.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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).
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
- Yolks enrich the dough and whites, whipped to stiff peaks, lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Flour
- Starch forms the smooth dough and gives the cakes their structure as they set.
- Butter
- Fat adds richness and tenderness to the dough and cakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
The step that matters
Let the dough cool before adding the eggs. If the dough is still hot, the beaten yolks and whipped whites can cook or deflate, so the batter loses its lift and the cakes turn out dense.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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