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 ↓
Mock Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Heat the milk in a saucepan.
In a bowl, mix the butter and flour together.
Thin the butter-flour mixture with a little cold milk.
Cook the mixture in the saucepan, stirring constantly, until smooth.
Add the remaining milk and boil for five minutes, stirring continuously.
Finish and serve
Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks while hot. Mix well.
Strain.
Beat until light.
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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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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid body of the cream and sets into a smooth, pourable texture when cooked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the cream a smooth mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the mixture body.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich and thicken the cream when stirred in while hot.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks while hot. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if added to very hot liquid too fast. Stirring continuously while adding them, and keeping the mixture off direct heat, helps them blend in smoothly and thicken gently.
“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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