Name: Spiced Cupcakes with Orange Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 1 stick FOR THE CUPCAKES:; ½ cups Unsalted Butter; ½ cups Light Brown Sugar; 2 Caster Sugar; ½ teaspoons Large Eggs; 1 pinch Vanilla Extract; 1-½ cup Salt; 2 teaspoons All-purpose Flour; ½ teaspoons Baking Powder; ½ teaspoons Ground Cinnamon; ¼ teaspoons Ground Ginger; ¼ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg; ½ cups Ground Cloves; ½ cups Milk; 1 Tablespoon FOR THE FILLING:; ½ sticks Orange Marmalade Or Jam; 10 ounces, weight Light Brown Sugar; ½ teaspoons FOR THE FROSTING:; 2-½ cups Unsalted Butter

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,287 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg):

Cardamomfits better
Clovefits better
Allspicefits better
Gingerthe original

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

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Cloves	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Spiced Cupcakes with Orange Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting