Name: Spice Cake
Ingredients: 10 egg yolks; 1 cup granulated sugar; 1½ cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground cloves; 1 cup chopped nuts

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 ↓

Spice Cake

Ingredients

Directions

In a granite saucepan, beat the egg yolks and gradually add the sugar until light and thick.
Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water on the stove and cook until thick.
Once cool, stir in the cinnamon, cloves, chopped nuts, and sifted flour.

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).
Flour + cinnamontop 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).
Cinnamon + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together487 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 nuts

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Chickpeafits better
Nutsthe original

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