Name: German Coffee Cake
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup lukewarm milk; 3½ cups sifted flour; 8 eggs; 1½ cups mixed fruit (citron, raisins, and currants in equal parts); 1 cup light brown sugar; ½ cup butter

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

German Coffee Cake

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 yeast in the lukewarm milk.
Add 1½ cups of flour to make a sponge; mix thoroughly and set aside in a warm place to rise for 1 to 1½ hours.
Once risen, add the salt, creamed butter, and sugar, along with the chopped and floured fruit.
Gradually add the remaining flour while beating thoroughly.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well again.
Place the mixture into well-greased molds, filling them half full.
Let rise for 1 hour and 45 minutes, or until the molds are three-quarters full.
Bake for 1 hour in a 300°F (150°C) 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter 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 (milk, flour, egg, raisin, sugar, butter):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

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