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 ↓
Cup Cake
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.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
Gradually add the flour and baking powder, mixing until combined.
Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Add lemon essence to taste.
Bake
Line a baking dish with buttered paper and pour in the batter.
Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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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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).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a light, tender texture and rich flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, when creamed with butter, helps create a light, aerated crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure as they set, and emulsify the batter for a cohesive, tender crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the cake once its proteins set during baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, making the cake rise and become airy.
The step that matters
Beat in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the butter mixture. Adding them all at once can cause curdling and a denser, uneven crumb.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, 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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