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Milk Shake

A chilled beverage made with milk, sugar, liquor, whipped cream, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Milk Shake

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Milk Shake

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the sugar in the bottom of a half-pint tumbler.

  2. Pour enough milk to fill the glass to within an inch of the top.

  3. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

  4. Add the maraschino or other liquor for flavor.

  5. Top with whipped cream.

  6. Cover the tumbler with a piece of clean white paper and hold the paper firmly to prevent milk from escaping.

  7. Shake vigorously up and down for one minute.

  8. Grate a little nutmeg on top before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the drink its body and creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the milk to balance the flavor.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, fatty texture on top of the drink.

The step that matters

Shake vigorously under the paper. The paper must be held firmly over the tumbler, or milk escapes during the shake. Vigorous shaking mixes the layers and aerates the milk, so a gentle shake leaves the drink flat and poorly blended.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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