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 ↓
Breakfast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add flour until the mixture is thick enough to roll out thinly.
Cut the dough into squares.
Fry and serve
Fry the squares quickly in hot lard until golden brown.
Serve hot with butter.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
- Flour
- Builds the body of the dough so it can be rolled out thinly.
- Cream of tartar
- Reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the dough.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to help the cakes rise.
- Milk
- Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
The step that matters
Fry the squares quickly in hot lard until golden brown. Hot fat sears the surface quickly, browning the outside while the inside cooks through. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy and pale.
“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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