Name: Layer Variety Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter; ⅓ cup sweet milk; 2 cups flour; 3 eggs; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ⅓ cup chopped raisins; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon cloves

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 ↓

Layer Variety Cake

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.
Incorporate the egg whites into the mixture.
Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the wet ingredients.
Divide the dough into three parts.
To one part, add the chopped raisins, cinnamon, and cloves, and mix well.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well

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