Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pop-overs
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the sweet milk, flour, egg, and salt.
Beat the egg separately until light and fluffy.
Fold the beaten egg into the mixture.
Pour the batter into popover pans.
Bake
Bake until puffed and 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the puffed walls once the batter sets.
- Egg
- Adds structure and helps the batter rise and puff as steam expands it.
- Sweet milk
- Supplies the liquid that turns the flour and egg into a pourable batter and creates steam.
The step that matters
Fold the beaten egg into the mixture. Folding keeps the air whipped into the beaten egg, which helps the popovers rise. Stirring vigorously would deflate the batter and reduce the puff.
“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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