Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Tea Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the sugar and sweet milk.
Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Bake and serve
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve warm.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that sets the cakes as they bake.
The step that matters
Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Once the acid and baking soda meet, gas starts forming, so the batter should be mixed gently until just smooth and baked promptly. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cakes tough.
“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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