Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Old Fashioned Short Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, combine buttermilk, melted lard, and salt.
Gradually add flour until the dough can be rolled out to ½-inch thick.
Shape and bake
Cut the dough into diamond shapes.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.
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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Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Buttermilk
- Adds acidity and moisture, tenderizing the dough and giving a soft crumb.
- Lard
- Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and helps it brown in the oven.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be rolled out.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the flour. Adding flour gradually lets you stop once the dough can be rolled to the right thickness. Too much flour makes the dough dry and tough, because gluten develops with handling and extra flour absorbs the liquid.
“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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