Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Dessert 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.
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Clean and dry a high mold or ice cream mold.
Warm and butter the mold thoroughly, then drain excess butter.
Dust the mold with sifted flour and knock out any excess flour.
Place the mold small end down in a tin or pasteboard box to prevent it from tipping.
Fill the mold three-fourths full with the cake mixture.
Bake in steady heat until done.
Once cooled, remove the cake from the mold.
Prepare icing that is thin enough to run smoothly but not too runny.
Place the cake on a plate and spoon the icing on top, allowing it to run down the sides.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
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