Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Melted Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter
Dust a little flour over the butter.
Place the butter in a saucepan with the water.
Stir constantly in one direction until melted and just boiling.
If using cream, omit the flour.
Stir constantly without boiling.
Make clarified oil
To oil butter, cut it into slices and place in a small jar.
Put the jar in a pan of boiling water until melted, then pour off the clear oil from the sediment.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
- Butter
- Provides the fat, richness and flavour that make up the melted butter or oil.
- Cream
- Adds milk solids and richness to the melted butter when used.
- Flour
- Helps thicken and stabilise the butter emulsion when used.
The step that matters
Pour off the clear oil from the sediment. Milk solids in butter settle as sediment when it melts. Pouring slowly and leaving the sediment behind keeps the oil clear, while disturbing the bottom leaves cloudy, milky particles in the finished oil.
“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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