Name: Corn Cakes
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 cup raisins and chopped nuts; 1 tablespoon butter; a pinch of salt; 1 cup sugar; milk or water; self-rising pancake flour

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Corn Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, mix the eggs, raisins, chopped nuts, butter, salt, and sugar.
Add enough milk or water to achieve a cake batter consistency.
Incorporate self-rising pancake flour until well combined.
Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 nuts

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Pistachiofits better
Nutsthe original

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