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 ↓
Breakfast Gems
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and sweet milk in a bowl until a stiff batter forms.
Fry and serve
Scoop the batter with a teaspoon and fry in deep fat until golden brown.
Dust the fried cakes with powdered sugar before serving.
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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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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure to the cakes as they set in the hot fat.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the batter, so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light inside.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown well in the hot fat.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture to the batter so it mixes into a workable, tender dough.
The step that matters
Frying in deep fat until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy and oily before they cook through.
“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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