Name: German Cakes
Ingredients: 2 pounds flour; 1 pound sugar; 1 pound butter; 3 eggs; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ⅓ cup rose water; almonds, blanched and halved (for topping)

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

German Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, cinnamon, and rose water until a dough forms.
Roll the dough thin on a floured surface.
Cut the rolled dough into cake shapes.

Bake

Place the cut cakes on a baking sheet and top each with halved almonds.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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.

Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they 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 dough together and lets it be rolled and cut.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness, helping the cakes brown as they bake.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown to a golden color.
Rose water: Adds a floral aroma that defines the flavor of these cakes.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, rose, almond):

Cinnamonthe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Capersfits less well
Turmericfits less well

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

“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.