Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
To Melt Butter
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the flour with the butter on a plate.
Transfer the mixture to a small saucepan.
Add the hot water and boil quickly for one minute, shaking continuously.
If using milk instead of water, use slightly less butter for a whiter appearance.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 fat and rich flavour, forming the body of the sauce as it melts.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the sauce body.
- Hot water
- Melts the butter and loosens the flour into a smooth, pourable liquid.
The step that matters
Boil quickly while shaking continuously. Constant movement keeps the flour evenly dispersed and the melted fat blended with the water. If the mixture sits still, the flour can clump and the butter can separate, leaving a grainy or oily sauce.
“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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