Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Thompson Breakfast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Cut in the shortening using a spatula or mixing spoon.
Add the milk or water and mix until combined.
Toss the dough onto a floured surface, knead lightly, and roll to about ¼ inch thick.
Cut with a large biscuit cutter.
Griddle and serve
Heat a griddle and sprinkle a little flour on it.
When the flour turns light brown, place the biscuit cakes on the griddle.
Bake slowly until they rise and are half cooked, then turn them over carefully.
Allow them to brown and cook through.
Serve hot like biscuits.
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 + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they rise and set.
- Shortening
- Cut into the flour to add fat, tenderising the crumb and keeping it flaky.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas as the cakes heat, making them rise and lighten.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds moisture and browning through milk sugars.
The step that matters
Bake slowly until they rise and are half cooked, then turn them over carefully.. Gentle heat lets the baking powder release gas and the centre set before the outside browns. Turning too early or on too hot a griddle can burn the surface and leave the middle raw, and turning roughly can deflate the risen cakes.
“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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