Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Ammonia Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Mix the dough
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the sugar, sweet cream, egg, ammonia, and butter until well combined.
Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll out.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake
Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
- Sweet cream
- Adds moisture and richness, keeping the dough tender.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets.
- Ammonia
- Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas that lightens the cake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Adding the flour gradually. Flour builds structure as it absorbs liquid and gluten develops. Adding too much at once or overworking the dough makes the cake dense and tough, so stop adding flour once the dough is just firm enough to roll.
“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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