Name: Franklin Buns
Ingredients: 6 ounces of butter; ¾ pound of sugar; ½ pound of flour; ½ cup of cream; ⅓ cup of rose water; ⅓ cup of wine; grated nutmeg from 1 nutmeg; 2 yeast powders (1 blue, 1 white)

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Franklin Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Beat the butter and sugar until light.
Gradually stir in the cream with half the flour.
Whisk the eggs until thick, then add them with the remaining flour, half at a time, and beat well.
Mix the blue yeast powder with the rose water and stir it in gradually.
Mix the white yeast powder with the wine and add it in the same manner, along with the nutmeg.
Beat all the ingredients together well.
Butter a square pan, pour in the mixture, and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).
When done, sift white sugar over the top and cut into squares.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour 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 nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, cream, rose, wine):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Tarragonfits less well
Thymefits less well

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