Name: Little Plum Cakes
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter, softened; 3 eggs, well beaten; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted; 1 cup raisins; 1 cup currants; ½ teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in a little water; Milk, as needed to make a stiff batter

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 ↓

Little Plum Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the beaten eggs and vanilla extract, mixing well.
Stir in the sifted flour, raisins, currants, and dissolved baking soda.
Add milk gradually until you achieve a stiff batter.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto well-buttered baking sheets.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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).
Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 currant

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

Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Peachfits better
Currantthe original

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