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 ↓
H Graham Gems
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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the sour milk.
Add baking soda, sugar, melted butter, and salt; stir well.
Gradually add white flour and enough graham flour until the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.
Bake for twenty minutes or 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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
What each ingredient does
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure to the gems as they bake.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the gems rise and turn tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- White flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the gems together.
- Graham flour
- Adds a nutty flavour and a coarser texture to the batter.
The step that matters
Thickness of the batter. The batter should be thick enough to hold its shape when dropped from a spoon. Too much liquid lets the gems spread and bake flat, while stiff batter that is too dry can bake dense.
“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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