Why it works: Currant and sherry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Wine Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Spread a layer of cake with currant jelly.
Cover it with a second layer of cake.
Make the icing as directed in the recipe for Wine Icing.
Set aside to harden.
Transfer to a plate lined with fancy-cut paper and serve.
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.
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Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together393 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,141 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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 currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Pineapplefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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