Name: Neapolitan Wafers
Ingredients: 4 large fresh eggs; 1½ oz. butter; 6 oz. flour; 2 oz. loaf sugar; 1½ oz. olive oil; a little essence of cinnamon; a little essence of cloves

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 ↓

Neapolitan Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Sift the flour and pound the sugar into an earthenware pan and mix well.
Break the eggs into a bowl, beat them well, and add to the flour and sugar mixture.
Dissolve the butter in warm water and add the olive oil, then mix into the flour.
Flavor the mixture with a drop or two of the essences mentioned.
For further instructions on heating and filling the irons, refer to the instructions for Wafers, No. 246.

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).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Olive + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,501 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Capersfits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar, olive, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.