Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Rhubarb Tarts
Ingredients
Directions
Peel and cut the rhubarb into small pieces.
Place the rhubarb in a saucepan with a little sugar and stew until tender.
Transfer the rhubarb to a flat dish and add more sugar, a little butter, and mace or cinnamon.
Line small tin plates with puff pastry and fill them with the rhubarb mixture.
Add strips of pastry across the top for decoration.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.
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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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,852 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Butter + macetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,405 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Rhubarb + buttertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rhubarb + macetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together33 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rhubarb, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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