Name: New-york Cup Cake
Ingredients: 4 eggs; 4 cups sifted flour; 3 cups powdered white sugar; 1 cup butter; 1 cup warm milk; ⅓ cup white wine; 1 grated nutmeg; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon pearl-ash (dissolved in vinegar)

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

New-york Cup Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Warm the milk and cut the butter into it, keeping it by the fire until melted.
Prepare the spices and sift the flour.
Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the milk alternately with the flour.
Add the spices, wine, and lastly the dissolved pearl-ash.
Stir all ingredients vigorously.
Butter small tins and fill them half-full with the batter.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).