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 ↓
Jenny Lind Drop 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Stir in the sweet milk and mix until just combined.
Add the egg and mix gently until incorporated.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake for 12-15 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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Butter + milktop 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the cake as its main dry base.
- Butter
- Cut into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form a soft batter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas for lift.
The step that matters
Mix the batter gently after adding the milk and egg. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense instead of tender. Stop mixing as soon as the ingredients are combined.
“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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