Name: Fruit Cake Without Butter and Eggs
Ingredients: 13 ounces of fat pork, finely chopped; 1 pint of boiling water; 2 cups of sugar; 1 cup of molasses; 1 tablespoon of baking soda; 1 tablespoon of cinnamon; 4 cups of flour; 1 pound of raisins; 1 pint of boiling cider (optional)

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 ↓

Fruit Cake Without Butter and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Pour boiling water over the chopped pork in a bowl.
Add sugar, molasses, baking soda, cinnamon, flour, and raisins to the bowl.
Mix until well combined.
Wrap the cake in a cloth and place it in a box.
Add an apple to the box to keep the cake moist.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Delicate Cake246 recipes

Boiled Frosting69 recipes

Citron Cake68 recipes

Scotch Cake63 recipes

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Fruit Cake Without Butter and Eggs