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 ↓
Breakfast Cake
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, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
In another bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and sugar until well combined.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Melt the butter and fold it into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into cups and bake for about 20-25 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, producing lift and a tender crumb.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and adds softness and browning.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
The step that matters
Mixing the wet and dry ingredients. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing toughens the batter and can deflate the gas bubbles that baking soda and cream of tartar create.
“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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