Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cold Milk Shake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine milk, essence, and sugar in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
Blend and serve
Pour mixture into a quart pitcher and add pounded ice.
Beat the mixture briskly with a crank egg-beater until it foams to the top of the pitcher.
Serve immediately.
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 + 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
- Whole milk
- Provides the liquid base and richness for the shake.
- Granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the cold milk.
- Pounded ice
- Chills the milk so the shake is cold and thick.
The step that matters
Beating until it foams. Vigorous beating traps air into the cold milk, creating foam. Stopping too early leaves the shake flat and less airy.
“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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