Name: Brown Sugar Cakes
Ingredients: 2 quarts flour; ¼ pound butter; 10 eggs; 1½ pounds brown sugar; ⅓ cup brandy; 1 nutmeg, grated; orange peel, grated

Why it works: Nutmeg and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Brown Sugar Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Sift the flour and rub in the butter.
Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.
Stir in the brandy, grated nutmeg, and orange peel.
Work the flour and butter mixture into the egg and sugar mixture.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,706 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the cakes a tender, crumbly texture.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and moisture.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color and flavor through browning.
Brandy: Adds aroma and flavor to the dough.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, sugar, brandy, nutmeg):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Orangethe original

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

“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.