Name: Dark Fruit Sticks
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 2 oz baking soda; 3 lbs currants; 3 lbs raisins; 8 eggs; 1 pint water; 1 pint molasses; 6 lbs flour; Spices to taste

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dark Fruit Sticks

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Dissolve the baking soda in the water.
Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs, molasses, and water.
Mix in the flour, then add the currants, raisins, and spices.
Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and roll each part into a log the length of a cake pan.
Place 3 logs on a baking pan, wash with egg, and bake at 300°F (150°C).
Do not flatten the logs, as they will spread while baking.
Once baked and cooled, cut into sticks 1 inch wide.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, raisin, egg, molasses, flour):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Datesfits about as well
Currantthe original

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