Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Breakfast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix sugar, beaten eggs, and rose water.
Add enough sifted flour to create a thin batter and stir until smooth.
Cook and serve
Heat the wafer iron, greasing it with butter on a linen rag.
Fill the iron with batter and close it, placing it in the fire to heat both sides.
Cook for about 2 minutes, turning frequently if necessary.
Sprinkle with pounded sugar and roll over a smooth stick if desired.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Bind the batter and set into a delicate structure when heated.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown at the surface.
- Sifted flour
- Provides the starch that sets the batter into a thin, cooked cake.
The step that matters
Fill the iron with batter and close it. Too much batter or uneven heat can make the cakes thick, doughy, or scorched. A thin batter heated evenly on both sides cooks through and browns evenly.
“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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