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 Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the butter into the flour.
Stir in the sugar and baking powder.
Beat the egg and milk together.
Mix the dry ingredients into a dough with the egg and milk.
Divide the dough into two pieces and form each into a flat cake.
Lightly cut each cake into four sections with a knife.
Bake and serve
Place on a buttered baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.
Cut open, butter, and serve.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough that holds the cakes together.
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
- Milk
- Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
The step that matters
Place on a buttered baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.. Baking powder needs a hot oven to release gas quickly, so the cakes rise and set. Starting the bake promptly after shaping keeps the rising effective and helps the cakes brown.
“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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