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 ↓
Rye Drop 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.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, mix together the milk, beaten eggs, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and sugar.
Gradually add rye meal until the mixture forms a thick batter.
Bake
Spoon the batter onto a baking sheet.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until 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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 as they set in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the drops rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the cake.
- Rye meal
- Provides the grain base and body that thickens the batter into drops.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished cake.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
The step that matters
Gradually add rye meal until the mixture forms a thick batter. Rye flour absorbs liquid differently from wheat and can make batter too stiff or too loose. Adding it gradually lets you judge the texture, so the drops hold their shape without becoming dense.
“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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