Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Very Good Common Plum Cakes
12 portionsIngredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the butter, flour, and sugar until combined. Add the currants and pimento, mixing well.
Dissolve the yeast in the warmed milk and combine with the mixture to form a light dough.
Shape and bake
Divide the dough into 12 portions and shape into cakes.
Place the cakes on a floured baking tin and bake for 30 minutes.
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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Butter + milktop 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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Currant + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough and cakes together.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the light dough rise.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Dissolving the yeast in the warmed milk. Yeast needs warm liquid to become active. If the milk is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is cold the dough may rise slowly or not at all.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, milk. 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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