Name: Virginia Buns
Ingredients: 2 lbs flour; 1 pint new milk; ½ lb butter; 8 eggs; 1½ grated nutmegs; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ⅓ cup yeast; 1 lb white sugar

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 ↓

Virginia Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Sift the flour into a large bowl.
Warm the milk and butter together until the butter melts.
Stir the warm milk and butter into the flour.
Beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture.
Add the grated nutmeg and cinnamon, and mix well.
Beat the egg whites until light and fold them into the mixture.
Add the yeast and mix until combined.
Set the dough aside to rise until doubled in size.
Once risen, stir in the white sugar until well mixed.
Divide the dough into pans and let it rise again before baking.

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).
Milk + buttertop 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).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).