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Drink

Flour Caudle

A thickened hot drink made with flour, water, milk, lemon peel, sweetener, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Flour Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the caudle

  1. Stir the flour into the cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the fresh milk and lemon peel.

  3. Sweeten and flavor to taste.

  4. Serve with salt alone.

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add flour and a pinch of salt.

  3. Pour in the fresh milk and water.

  4. Simmer until smooth before adding other ingredients.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets during simmering.
Milk
Adds body and creaminess, giving the drink a soft, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright citrus aroma that flavors the liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into cold water before heating. Flour starch clumps if it meets hot liquid directly. Dispersing it in cold water first lets the granules separate, so simmering thickens the mixture evenly and smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter. 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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