Name: Light Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound cake; 1 cup currants; 1 cup raisins; ½ cup sliced citron; 1 tablespoon mixed spices; juice and grated rind of ½ lemon

Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Light Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a pound cake.
Mix in 1 cup of currants and raisins.
Add ½ cup of sliced citron and 1 tablespoon of mixed spices.
Incorporate the juice and grated rind of ½ lemon.
Flour the fruit and add it last.

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.

Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).