Name: Minnehaha Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 4 tablespoons water; 2 egg whites; ½ cup raisins; ½ cup chopped nuts; Walnuts for topping

Why it works: Nuts and walnut work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 284 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Minnehaha Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Boil sugar and water together as for frosting.
Stir the mixture into the beaten egg whites.
Add raisins and chopped nuts to the mixture.
Save a little frosting to spread over the top.
Top the cake with walnuts.

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.

Nuts + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together284 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).