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 ↓
Indian Light 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.
Make the batter
Mix the butter and salt with the Indian meal.
Boil half the milk.
Add the dissolved baking soda and beaten eggs to the remaining half of cold milk.
Pour the boiling milk over the meal and let it cool.
Then add the cold milk mixture.
Bake
Bake in a shallow pan at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Forms the main body of the cake and gives it its corn flavour and crumb.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and keeps the cake moist.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help the cake set firm as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk over the meal. Boiling liquid swells the starch in cornmeal so it absorbs the milk, keeping the cake moist rather than gritty. Letting it cool before adding the eggs prevents the beaten eggs from cooking when mixed in.
“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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