Name: Rock Cakes
Ingredients: 3 cups sugar; 2 cups butter; 2 cups chopped raisins; 2 cups walnuts; 6 eggs; 2 teaspoons cinnamon; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 6 to 7 cups flour; a pinch of salt

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Rock Cakes

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

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the chopped raisins, walnuts, and eggs, mixing well.
Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the cinnamon, salt, and flour until combined.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a buttered baking sheet.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,147 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour: Forms the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Baking soda: Reacts with the batter to help the cakes rise and brown.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps browning as the cakes bake.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, raisin, egg, cinnamon, flour):

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Pistachiofits better
Walnutthe original

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

“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.