Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Butter Icing for Ornamenting
Ingredients
Directions
Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat until smooth.
Add the sifted flour and beat together until very smooth.
Transfer the mixture into a piping bag and use immediately.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Butter
- Provides fat and richness, and sets firm as it cools to hold its shape.
- Flour
- Thickens the melted butter so the mixture becomes stiff enough to pipe.
The step that matters
Beating in the flour until very smooth. Flour that stays in lumps won't blend into the fat, leaving a grainy icing that pipes unevenly. Thorough beating disperses the starch evenly through the butter.
“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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