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 ↓
Yorkshire Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
In a pan, mix warm milk and yeast with enough flour to make a thick batter. Cover and let it rise in a warm place.
Rub butter into some flour until fine.
Add eggs to the pan with the flour and butter mixture. Mix well.
Add enough flour to form a dough and let it rest for 15 minutes.
Work the dough again and divide it into pieces the size of an egg or larger.
Roll each piece into a smooth ball and place on baking tins. Cover with a light piece of flannel.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + beertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together298 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together680 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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
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