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Bread

Pop-overs

A light, airy bread made by baking a batter of flour, milk, egg, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pop-overs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour and salt together.

  2. Gradually add milk to the mixture.

  3. Add the unbeaten egg and melted butter.

  4. Beat with a whisk for 2 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour into hot greased glass pans or earthenware cups, filling them no more than halfway.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 450°F (230°C) for 30 to 40 minutes, then reduce temperature to 375°F (190°C).

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen walls of the popover.
Egg
Adds structure and helps the batter puff and set as it bakes.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that turns steam into lift and gives a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Filling the cups no more than halfway. The batter needs room to climb as steam forms in the hot oven. Overfilling can block the rise and leave dense, squat popovers.

“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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