Name: Christmas Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound butter; 3 eggs, well beaten; 2 pounds flour; 1 pound currants, picked and dried; 1 pound sugar; 5 teaspoons baking powder; ½ cup milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Christmas Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

Cream the butter in a large bowl.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Stir in the flour, currants, sugar, baking powder, and milk until combined.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 2 hours.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and helps carry flavour through the cake.
Eggs: Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay moist.
Currants: Provide chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the cake.