Name: Buttermilk, Artificial
Ingredients: 10 parts buttermilk powder; 1 part vinegar; 1 part syrup of buckthorn; 50 parts sodium chloride; 100 parts milk sugar; 5 parts potassium nitrate; 6 parts alum

Why it works: Buttermilk and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk, Artificial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Dissolve the buttermilk powder in water.
Add the vinegar and syrup of buckthorn.

Make the powder

To prepare the powder, mix sodium chloride, milk sugar, potassium nitrate, and alum.

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.

Buttermilk + syruptop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together124 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Buttermilk powder: Provides the milk solids and dairy flavour that the liquid buttermilk substitute is built on.
Vinegar: Adds the sour acidity that gives the mixture its characteristic buttermilk tang.
Milk sugar: Adds mild sweetness and bulk to the powder, balancing the sourness.
Potassium nitrate: Acts as a curing agent in the powder, contributing to preservation and colour.

“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.