Name: Scotch Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound sugar; ¾ pound butter; Zest of 1 lemon; Juice of 1 lemon; ⅓ cup brandy; 9 eggs, separated; 1 pound flour; 1 pound raisins

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, and brandy; mix well.
Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until frothy, then combine them into the mixture.
Gradually add the flour and mix until just combined.
Fold in the raisins gently.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Apricotfits about as well
Lemonthe original

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