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 ↓
Cream Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Stir the butter into the warm water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring often.
Once boiling, add the flour and boil for 1 minute, stirring continuously.
Remove from heat and transfer to a deep dish to cool.
Finish and bake
Beat the eggs until light and whip them into the cooled mixture, adding the yolks first, then the whites.
Drop spoonfuls onto buttered parchment paper, ensuring they do not touch, and bake for 10 minutes.
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).
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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).
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
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Provide structure and moisture, and their air and steam help the cakes puff while baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture and flavour to the cakes.
- Flour
- Its starch thickens when boiled with the liquid, giving the paste structure that sets in the oven.
The step that matters
Cooling the paste before adding the eggs. If the paste is still very hot, the eggs can scramble instead of blending in. The mixture must be cool enough to take the eggs smoothly, so the batter holds its shape when baked.
“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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