Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Quick Sally Lunn
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the sweet milk.
Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as cake.
Mix in the baking powder.
Bake and serve
Bake until golden and 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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 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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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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter, setting as it bakes into a crumb.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping it rise and turn light and airy.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the sugar cream into the batter.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and aids browning as it bakes.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter moisture.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as cake. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the batter's stiffness. Too much flour makes the crumb dense and dry, while too little leaves it slack and unable to hold its rise.
“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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