Name: Nutmeg Rolls
Ingredients: ½ pound almonds; ½ pound powdered sugar; ⅓ ounce ground cinnamon; 4 cloves; 2 leaves of mace; a pinch of grated nutmeg; 3 egg whites; 1 tablespoon fine flour; fresh butter for greasing

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Nutmeg Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Whip and pound the almonds.
Mix the almonds with powdered sugar, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and beaten egg whites.
Add flour to bind the mixture.
Form rolls from the paste.

Bake

Grease a pie dish with fresh butter and place the rolls inside.
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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds: Form the main body of the paste and give the rolls their nutty flavor and texture.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the paste hold together as it bakes.
Egg whites: Bind the almond mixture together and help the rolls set as they bake.
Fine flour: Helps bind the mixture so the rolls keep their shape.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, egg, flour):

Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, egg, flour. 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.