Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Funnel Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix sweet milk, beaten eggs, flour, baking powder, and salt until smooth.
Fry and serve
Heat enough lard in a pan to cover the bottom well.
Using a funnel, pour the batter into the hot lard, starting from the center and spiraling outward.
Fry until light brown, then remove and serve with tart jelly while hot.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the thin batter set as it fries.
- Flour
- Forms the batter's structure so it sets into a crisp, lacy cake when fried.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lightens the batter so the cakes puff slightly as they cook.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid that thins the batter and adds tenderness and browning.
The step that matters
Pouring the batter into hot lard. The lard must be hot enough that the batter sets and crisps immediately; if it is cool, the batter absorbs fat, turns greasy, and the spiral loses its shape.
“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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