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 ↓
Tea Cakes
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs and sweet milk to the butter mixture and mix well.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.
Bake and serve
Spoon the batter into small patty pans.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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 main structure of the cakes as its proteins set in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness and help bind the batter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
- Sweet milk
- Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.
The step that matters
Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop, so overmixing can make the cakes tough. Stopping once the batter is just combined keeps them tender, and the leavening starts working as soon as the wet and dry ingredients meet.
“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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