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Dessert

Milk Brai.

Milk Brai is a sweet milk-based batter thickened with butter, flour, and sugar, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Milk Brai.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add enough flour to absorb the butter.

  3. Stir for 6 minutes.

Add the milk

  1. Gradually fill the saucepan with cold milk.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring continuously for 30 minutes.

Sweeten and serve

  1. Add the loaf sugar and a pinch of salt.

  2. Stir until dissolved.

  3. Serve warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour into the base.
Flour
Absorbs the butter and thickens the liquid as its starch cooks.
Cold milk
Forms the liquid base, adding body and creaminess as it thickens.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the warm liquid.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil while stirring continuously. Milk thickens as flour starch cooks, and it can scorch or stick to the base of the pan. Constant stirring keeps heat even and prevents lumps and burning.

“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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