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 ↓
Breakfast and Tea Cakes
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg and milk to the butter mixture, then combine with the dry ingredients.
Spoon the batter onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that sets as the cakes bake.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to add lift and help browning.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and is creamed with sugar to trap air.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cakes and helps the creamed butter become light and fluffy.
The step that matters
Spoon the batter onto the baking sheet without overmixing. Once the dry ingredients meet the wet ones, gluten starts to form and leavening gas begins to be released. Overmixing makes the cakes tough, and waiting too long before baking lets the rising power fade.
“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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