Name: Egg Cheese Cakes
Ingredients: 6 hard boiled eggs; ½ cup butter; ½ cup sugar; dried currants (optional); juice of 1 lemon; lemon rind; nutmeg (to taste); brandy (to taste)

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the hard boiled eggs through a sieve.
In a bowl, mix the sieved eggs with butter and sugar until well combined.
If desired, add a few dried currants.
Stir in the juice and rind of the lemon.
Add nutmeg and brandy to taste.
Fill the pastry shells with the mixture.

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.

Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, brandy):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits better
Currantthe original

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