Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓
79 Short Cake
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
Rub the cream or shortening into the flour.
Mix the dissolved saleratus with the sour milk.
Combine the milk mixture with the flour to form a stiff dough.
Bake
Shape the dough and bake quickly in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Milk and flour 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
- Cream or shortening
- Rubbed into the flour, it coats flour particles and keeps the crumb tender and short.
- Saleratus
- An early leavening agent that releases gas when dissolved and reacted with the sour milk, helping the cake rise.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the saleratus to produce gas, and it adds moisture for the dough.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough once moistened and shaped.
The step that matters
Bake quickly in a hot oven. The leavening gas is released as soon as the saleratus meets the acidic sour milk, so the dough should be shaped and put into a hot oven without delay to lock in the rise before it escapes.
“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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