Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,075 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Poor Man's Cake
Ingredients
Directions
One cupful of butter, three cupfuls of sugar, three of sweet milk, three cupfuls of flour, before sifting, one teaspoonful of soda, one pound of raisins, spices and brandy to taste.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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