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 ↓
Seed 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.
Prepare the dough
Sift together the flour, brown sugar, and cream of tartar.
Warm the milk and butter together.
Add the sour milk and baking soda to the warm mixture and beat until frothy.
Stir in the beaten eggs and seeds.
Mix everything together with your hands.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin and cut it into rounds.
Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness and moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness, flavor, and a softer texture.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel-like flavor to the dough.
The step that matters
Beat the sour milk and baking soda into the warm mixture until frothy. The acid in the sour milk reacts with the baking soda to release carbon dioxide bubbles. Beating well traps these bubbles in the batter, which lifts the cake during baking.
“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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