Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Rice Cup Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the yolks of the eggs for ten minutes.
Add the sugar to the yolks and beat again.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and lemon juice until crumbly.
Fold the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture.
Gently fold in the ground rice and sifted flour.
Pour the batter into gem irons or patty pans.
If desired, add a little ground caraway.
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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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together270 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + carawaytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together64 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the caraway
The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon, rice, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Carawaythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon, rice, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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