Name: A Plum Cake
Ingredients: 1 quart of dough; ½ pound of moist sugar; ½ pound of butter; 1 cup of cream; 2 eggs; 1 pound of currants; 1 teaspoon of allspice; 2 ounces of candied orange peel, chopped; 1 ounce of caraway seeds

Why it works: Allspice and orange work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 727 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roll out the dough several times.
Spread the currants, sugar, butter, cream, eggs, allspice, orange peel, and caraway seeds over the dough.
Flour a pan well and place the dough in it to rise.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

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.

Allspice + orangetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together727 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Allspice + carawaytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together69 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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 (sugar, butter, cream, egg, allspice, orange, caraway):

Lemonfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg, allspice, orange, caraway. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.