Name: Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.
Ingredients: flour; water or milk; butter; eggs; baking soda or cream of tartar; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Combine flour, water or milk, and any other dry ingredients the night before to allow the mixture to rise.
In the morning, melt the butter and beat the eggs well before adding them to the mixture.
If the batter seems sour, dissolve a little baking soda and stir it in.
Knead the dough well and for a sufficient time to ensure a fine texture.
Use as little flour as possible when molding the dough into loaves or biscuits.
If using baking powder, prepare the oven first and handle the dough quickly before baking.
To freshen stale biscuits or rolls, steam them for ten minutes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes

Potato Bread124 recipes

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Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.