Name: Hot Cakes
Ingredients: 3 cakes of wheat, buckwheat, or corn; 2 pieces of butter; 1 pitcher of syrup

Why it works: Wheat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hot Cakes

Ingredients

3 cakes of wheat, buckwheat, or corn
2 pieces of butter
1 pitcher of syrup

Directions

Prepare 3 cakes, each 4½ inches in diameter.
Serve the cakes on a 6-inch plate.
Add 2 pieces of butter and a pitcher of syrup on the side.

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.

Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Wheat + syruptop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + syruptop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,796 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).