Name: Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients: one cup of granulated sugar; one cup of milk; two cups of flour; one teaspoonful of cream of tartar; a teaspoonful of soda; one egg; butter the size of an egg; cinnamon

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 30,777 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the batter

Combine one cup of granulated sugar, butter the size of an egg, one egg, one cup of milk, two cups of flour, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, and half a teaspoonful of soda.
Mix in the usual way, sifting the soda and cream of tartar with the flour.

Bake

Put in a shallow pan.
Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
Bake about fifteen minutes in a moderate oven.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

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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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together30,777 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together81,222 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together41,494 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together12,647 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together43,437 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 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 structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the soda to lift the cake.
Soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Milk: Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

“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.