Name: Digestive Biscuits
Ingredients: 1 lb butter; 5 lb wheat meal; 4 eggs; 4 oz sugar; 1 oz carbonate of soda; 1 quart water

Why it works: Butter and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Digestive Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the butter into the wheat meal.
Make a hollow in the center and pour in the beaten eggs, sugar, and carbonate of soda.
Mix to form a pool of batter in the center, then gradually draw down the flour from the sides.
Moisten the dough with water until it reaches a workable consistency.
Take one-third of the dough and roll it out to the thickness of a penny.
Cut into oval or round shapes, prick them, and place in the oven.

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 + wheattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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