Name: Oregon Fruit Cake—
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 cup brown sugar; 3 eggs; ⅔ cup Orleans syrup; 1 cup sweet milk; 3 cups flour; ⅔ grated nutmeg

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 ↓

Oregon Fruit Cake—

Ingredients

Directions

Cream together the butter and brown sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well for at least ten minutes.
Mix in the Orleans syrup, sweet milk, and flour in that order.
Finally, add the grated nutmeg and stir until combined.

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).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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 nutmeg

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Jalapenofits less well
Gingerfits less well

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