Name: Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients: 1½ cups grated chocolate; 1½ cups sugar; 3 eggs; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground cloves; Flour (enough to drop)

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine grated chocolate and sugar.
Add eggs, cinnamon, and ground cloves; beat well.
Gradually add flour until the mixture is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,808 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Clovethe original

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