Name: Queen Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound powdered white sugar; 1 pound fresh butter, washed; 14 ounces sifted flour; 1 teaspoon mace; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 nutmeg, beaten or grated; 10 eggs; ⅓ cup wine and brandy, mixed; ½ cup rose water or 12 drops essence of lemon

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Queen Cake

Ingredients

Directions

In a deep earthen pan, combine the powdered sugar and cut in the butter until very light.
In a broad shallow pan, beat the eggs until perfectly smooth and thick.
Stir the wine and brandy into the beaten eggs.
Add a little of the beaten egg to the butter and sugar mixture, followed by a little flour, alternating until all is combined.
Mix in the mace, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, wine):

Cardamomfits better
Clovefits better
Allspicefits better
Macethe original

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