Name: Mock Cream
Ingredients: ½ tablespoon flour; 1 pint milk; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mock Cream

Ingredients

½ tablespoon flour
1 pint milk
1 egg yolk

Directions

Mix the flour with the milk in a saucepan.
Simmer for 5 minutes.
Beat the egg yolk and stir it into the boiling milk.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 milk as its starch swells during heating, giving the custard body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base and adds richness and creaminess to the custard.
Egg yolk: Sets with gentle heat to thicken the custard and add richness.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk into the boiling milk. Egg proteins set at around 70°C and can scramble if the mixture is too hot or the yolk is added without vigorous stirring. Beating the yolk first and adding it steadily to the hot milk keeps the custard smooth. Straining afterwards catches any small lumps that form.

“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.