Name: Dough Cake
Ingredients: ½ pound dough; 1 egg; ½ cup sugar; ¼ pound currants; 2 ounces butter; 1 ounce candied peel; ½ teaspoon mixed spice (optional)

Why it works: Currant and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Dough Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Place ½ pound of dough in a mixing bowl.
Wash and dry the currants, then pick them over to remove any stones.
Grease a tin thoroughly with butter or lard.

Mix and bake

Add the currants, ½ cup of sugar, and 1 ounce of finely chopped candied peel to the dough. Optionally, add ½ teaspoon of mixed spice.
Break 1 egg into the bowl, add 2 ounces of butter, and mix all ingredients well.
Pour the mixture into the greased tin.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Finish

Turn the cake out of the tin and let it cool on its side against a plate.

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.

Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).