Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Cobbler
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, butter, and salt.
Add cold water until the mixture resembles biscuit dough.
Assemble and bake
Roll out a long piece of dough and line the sides of a 3-inch deep pan.
Pour the hot stewed cherries into the pan, filling it halfway with juice.
Roll out a round piece of dough about ¼ inch thick to cover the top.
Cut gashes in the top crust for juice to escape.
Bake until golden brown.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough and crust.
- Baking powder
- Leavens the dough so the crust rises and turns light.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crust tender and flaky.
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit filling and its juice, which moistens the crust.
The step that matters
Cut gashes in the top crust. Steam from the hot cherry filling needs an exit; without vents the trapped pressure can lift and soften the crust and make the juice boil over.
“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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