Name: Pâte À Baba, À LA Crème
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 1 ½ cups unsalted butter; 7 to 8 large eggs; 1 tablespoon active dry yeast; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 cup sugar; 4 tablespoons heavy cream; 3 tablespoons rum; optional: 1 ½ cups mixed raisins (Smyrna and Corinth) and ¼ cup candied citron

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pâte À Baba, À LA Crème

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups unsalted butter
7 to 8 large eggs
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons rum
optional: 1 ½ cups mixed raisins (Smyrna and Corinth) and ¼ cup candied citron

Directions

Sift the flour into a bowl; reserve 1 cup for the yeast mixture.
In a small bowl, mix the reserved flour with the yeast and a little warm water to create a starter.
In a large bowl, make a well in the center and add the butter, cream, salt, sugar, and 2 eggs.
Mix the butter and eggs with your hands, gradually incorporating the flour.
Knead the dough well, adding the remaining eggs one at a time.
Once smooth, add the yeast mixture and knead for another 4 to 5 minutes.
Stir in the rum and mix well.
Transfer the dough into molds and let it rise until doubled in size.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,007 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, sugar, cream, rum):

Vanillafits better
Raisinthe original
Bananafits about as well
Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, sugar, cream, rum. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.