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 ↓
Cream Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Combine milk, cornflour, and sugar in a saucepan to make a thick pudding.
Beat two eggs and stir them into the pudding for two minutes, without boiling.
Pour the mixture onto a wet plate and let it cool for two hours.
Shape and fry
Cut the cooled mixture into shapes, dip in egg wash, coat with crumbs, and fry until golden.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that thickens into a soft, set pudding.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the milk so the pudding firms enough to cut into shapes.
- Eggs
- Enrich the pudding and give the egg wash that helps crumbs stick.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring in the eggs without boiling. Eggs scramble and curdle when overheated, so the pudding must stay below boiling after they go in. Gentle heat lets the eggs thicken it smoothly and keeps it silky rather than grainy.
“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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