Name: Treacle Cheesecakes
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon flour; 4 tablespoons treacle; powdered ginger (to taste); short crust pastry (for lining the plate)

Why it works: Flour and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,564 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Treacle Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 tablespoon flour
4 tablespoons treacle
powdered ginger (to taste)
short crust pastry (for lining the plate)

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a buttered plate or large tartlet tin with short crust pastry.

Make the filling

Stir flour into treacle until smooth.
Add powdered ginger to the mixture.
Decorate the top with twists of pastry.

Bake

Bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Treacle: Provides sweetness, body and a dark, rich flavour that forms the filling.
Flour: Thickens the treacle so the filling holds its shape when baked.
Short crust pastry: Forms the base and decorative top, giving structure and a crisp, golden edge.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.