Name: Persimmon Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup persimmon pulp; ½ cup sugar; 1 egg; 1 cup flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Persimmon and flour share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 63 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Persimmon Cake

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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the persimmon pulp, sugar, and egg until well combined.
Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and mix until smooth.
Melt the butter and stir it into the batter.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

Persimmon + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together63 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Persimmon + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

Persimmon pulp: Adds moisture and natural sweetness, giving the cake a soft, tender crumb.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm, sliceable structure as it bakes.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic persimmon pulp to add lift and help browning.
Butter: Adds fat, which contributes richness and a tender texture to the crumb.