Why it works: Tea and pepper work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and 260 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Washington's Birthday Dinnbr Hbnd
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cake
Combine 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 tablespoon butter, pinch of salt.
Add 1 cup canned cherries (without juice), 2 eggs, 1 cup water.
Bake in layers.
Make the icing and assemble
For icing, combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1 cup cherry juice.
Boil until it thickens.
Stir until it becomes fine.
Pour icing between the cakes.
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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Tea + peppertop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together260 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + teatop 25% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together449 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Tea + eggtop 31% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together821 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg share little aroma chemistry, yet 106,462 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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the starch structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during baking.
- Canned cherries (in the method)
- Add fruit flavour and moisture to the cake batter.
- Sugar (in the method)
- Sweetens the icing and helps it thicken as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boil until it thickens. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates and it gets hotter; stopping too early leaves a runny icing, while overcooking can make it stiff and grainy when it cools.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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