Why it works: Tea and butter work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Tea-cakes, to Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and toast
Cut each tea-cake into 3 or 4 slices, depending on thickness.
Toast the slices on both sides over a clean fire.
Butter and serve
Spread butter on both sides of each toasted slice.
Stack the slices on top of each other and cut them into quarters.
Place the quarters on a very hot plate and serve immediately.
Serve 1 or 2 at a time to prevent them from spoiling.
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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Tea + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together703 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tea-cakes
- Form the base of the dish, which is sliced, toasted and served warm.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the toasted slices as it melts into them.
The step that matters
Serve immediately on a very hot plate. Toasted bread goes stiff and soggy as it cools, and butter sets once it cools. Serving hot keeps the slices crisp at the edges and the butter soft and melted.
“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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