Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fig Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Rub the grated coconut into the flour.
Prepare the batter as for a jelly cake.
Layer the cakes with icing made thick with grated coconut while warm.
Sprinkle additional grated coconut over the icing generously.
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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Coconut + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,315 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,090 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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