Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cream Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a kettle with water and bring it to a boil.
Add enough grated corn to the boiling water to achieve a thick gravy consistency.
Boil for ten minutes, stirring continuously.
Stir in 1 cup of cream, 1 tablespoon of butter, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
- Grated corn
- Thickens the water into a gravy-like body and adds sweet corn flavour.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and richer flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the corn with continuous stirring. Grated corn settles and scorches on the bottom of the pot when left unattended, and constant stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed so the soup thickens smoothly.
“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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