Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Cream Cakes
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.
Make the choux base
In a saucepan, boil the butter and water together.
Stir in the flour while boiling.
Let the mixture cool.
Add the egg yolks and beaten egg whites, along with the baking soda.
Grease a baking pan well.
Drop large spoonfuls of the mixture, leaving space for rising.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.
Make the filling
For the filling, boil the milk.
In a bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, and flour together.
Stir this mixture into the boiling milk until thickened.
Flavor with essence of lemon.
Let the filling cool.
Assemble
Fill the cakes.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Melts into the boiling water to add richness and tenderness to the dough.
- Flour
- Starch that gelatinises with the liquid to give the cakes their structure.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift as the yolks and whites set during baking.
- Baking soda
- Releases gas that helps the cakes rise and open up in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling thicken and turn golden.
- Milk
- Forms the body of the custard filling, giving it creaminess.
The step that matters
Stir the flour and custard until thickened. Flour starch must be cooked in boiling liquid to swell and thicken fully; undercooked starch leaves a raw, pasty filling and a loose, unstable cream.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, sugar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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