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 ↓
Fried Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix sweet milk, egg, sugar, lard, butter, baking powder, and salt until soft.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface.
Fry
Cut into desired shapes and fry in hot lard 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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and structure to the cakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough so the cakes rise and turn light.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and frying the cakes golden brown.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavor to the dough.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown when fried.
The step that matters
Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy, while lard that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks through. Keeping the fat at a steady hot temperature gives even golden browning.
“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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