Name: German Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound brown sugar; 4 teaspoons cinnamon; 1 pound flour; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 4 eggs; 2 tablespoons milk; 2 teaspoons cloves; a little lemon zest; butter for greasing pans

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

German Cakes

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix the batter

In a large bowl, mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, baking soda, cloves, and lemon zest.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and milk together.
Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into buttered pans.
Bake until golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the crumb during baking.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sugars and batter to lift the cakes as they bake.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, egg, milk, lemon, butter. 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.