Name: French Baba and Savarin Cakes
Ingredients: sultana raisins or seeded Malaga raisins; powdered sugar; thin syrup; Maraschino liquor

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

French Baba and Savarin Cakes

Ingredients

sultana raisins or seeded Malaga raisins
powdered sugar
thin syrup
Maraschino liquor

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Prepare a straight-sided cake pan with a wide center tube.
Mix the sultana raisins into the batter.
Bake the cake until golden brown.
Once baked, ice the cake with powdered sugar or dust it with powdered sugar.
Prepare a thin syrup with Maraschino liquor and saturate the baked cake with it.

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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together336 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).