Why it works: Tea and butter work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Tea-cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Cut each tea-cake into three or four slices, depending on thickness.
Toast the slices on both sides over a clear fire.
Spread butter on both sides of each toasted slice.
Stack the slices on top of each other and cut them into quarters.
Serve on a hot plate immediately to prevent spoilage.
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.
-
Tea + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together703 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
More tea cakes recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.