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 ↓
Caramel Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.
Add the milk to the creamed mixture.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then mix into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into layer tins and bake.
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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Sugar
- Creams with butter to add sweetness and help the cake brown.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to add fat, tenderness and flavour.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff froth, trapping air that gives the batter structure and lift.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the creamed mixture into a pourable batter.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and protein that set into the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Stiff egg white foam holds air bubbles that expand in the oven and lift the cake. Under-whipped whites give a dense cake, and over-whipped or deflated whites lose that trapped air.
“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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