Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓
Good Yeast-powder
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour thoroughly.
Sift the mixture to ensure even distribution.
Store in jars or tin boxes.
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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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cream of tartar
- Provides the acid that reacts with baking soda to release gas, so dough rises.
- Baking soda
- Supplies the alkali that reacts with the acid to produce carbon dioxide for rising.
- All-purpose flour
- Acts as a dry carrier that keeps the acid and base separated and evenly spread until use.
The step that matters
Sift the mixture to ensure even distribution.. If the acid and baking soda are unevenly mixed, some batches will react too strongly or too weakly, causing uneven rising and off flavors. Thorough sifting spreads both evenly through the flour.
“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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