Name: Milk Food
Ingredients: 3 pints fresh whey; 2 tablespoons fresh cream; ½ teaspoon sugar

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Milk Food

Ingredients

3 pints fresh whey
2 tablespoons fresh cream
½ teaspoon sugar

Directions

Warm the whey slightly above blood heat.
Add the cream and sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Serve warm, suitable for babies.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Whey + creamtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Whey + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh whey: Forms the liquid base of the drink, providing most of its volume and moisture.
Fresh cream: Adds fat, giving the drink a richer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and dissolves into the warm liquid to mellow its flavour.

“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.