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 ↓
Cream Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the flour and salt, mixing well.
Pour in the boiling milk and cook until smooth, stirring constantly.
Add half of the cream to the sauce to heat.
Pour the boiling sauce over the beaten egg yolks mixed with the remaining cream.
Serve
Serve the sauce over the buttered toast in a very hot deep dish.
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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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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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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the sauce and add richness when gently combined with the hot sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavor to the sauce and toast.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling sauce over the egg yolks. Adding hot sauce to beaten yolks too quickly can scramble them. Stirring the sauce in gradually while whisking the yolks keeps the mixture smooth and thickened.
“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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