Name: Eccles Cakes
Ingredients: puff paste scraps; ½ lb currants, well cleaned; ½ lb brown raw sugar; ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg; 2 oz finely chopped lemon peel

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Eccles Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

Roll out puff pastry scraps as for Banbury cakes.
Cut out circles with a smaller cutter.

Fill and shape

Mix currants, brown sugar, nutmeg, and lemon peel.
Place a small amount of the mixture on each circle of pastry.
Fold the pastry over to form a round shape.
Roll out each filled piece to about 2 inches in diameter.

Bake

Sprinkle sugar on top and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,983 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together23,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Puff paste scraps: Forms the flaky, layered pastry that encloses the filling and puffs and browns in the oven.
Currants: Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness within the filling.
Brown raw sugar: Adds sweetness and caramel notes, and helps the tops brown when baked.
Lemon peel: Adds bright, aromatic citrus oil that cuts through the sweetness of the filling.