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 ↓
Breakfast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the milk, flour, eggs, cream of tartar, and baking soda until smooth.
Melt the egg-sized piece of butter and add it to the mixture.
Cook the cakes
Heat a skillet and add the tablespoon of butter.
Pour batter into the skillet to form cakes and cook until golden brown on both sides.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown in the skillet.
The step that matters
Pour batter into the skillet to form cakes and cook until golden brown on both sides.. Batter leavened by cream of tartar and baking soda starts rising as soon as it is mixed, so it should go into a hot skillet promptly. Cooking until golden on both sides sets the structure and gives browning 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.
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