Name: Milk Food
Ingredients: ½ pint freshly made 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

½ pint freshly made whey
2 tablespoons fresh cream
½ teaspoon sugar

Directions

Warm the whey to body temperature.
Add the cream and sugar.
Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

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).