Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Bread Fried Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Soak leftover bread in milk or a mixture of milk and water until soft.
Mash the soaked bread until fine.
Add 2 eggs, baking soda, salt, and enough flour to create a batter that can be fried.
Fry
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot butter or lard.
Fry 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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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
- Leftover bread
- Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the fritters their body.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set firmly while frying.
- Baking soda
- Reacts to lift the batter slightly and lighten the texture.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter so it holds its shape in the hot fat.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and adds moisture and richness to the batter.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls into hot butter or lard. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter soaks up oil and turns greasy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, keeping the inside tender and the fritters from falling apart.
“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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