Name: Cream Cake
Ingredients: 5 eggs; 2 cups sugar; 2 tablespoons cream; 2 cups flour; 1½ teaspoons baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup milk; lemon or vanilla extract

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the eggs thoroughly.
Add sugar and cream, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.

Divide and bake

Divide the batter into five jelly tins, leaving about one-sixth of the batter.
To the reserved batter, add milk and lemon or vanilla extract.
Pour the flavored batter into the tins.
Bake.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs: Beaten eggs give the batter structure and lift as they trap air.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps keep it tender and browning evenly.
Milk: Adds moisture to the reserved batter, keeping the flavored layers soft.