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 ↓
Tea Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make and bake the cakes
In a large bowl, mix the eggs, milk, sugar, flour, butter, cinnamon, and baking powder until well combined.
Roll out the dough and cut it into thin cakes.
Bake the cakes in the preheated oven until golden.
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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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 dough and add structure, moisture and richness.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the cakes their structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the dough so the cakes rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the dough.
The step that matters
Bake until golden. Thin cakes can go from golden to dry and over-browned quickly. Browning comes from Maillard reactions between sugars and proteins, so colour is a useful cue, but the cakes should be checked as they near the end of baking.
“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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