Name: Shrewsbury Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 grated nutmeg; 3 pounds all-purpose flour; 3 eggs, beaten; 2 teaspoons rose water; butter, melted (enough to achieve a good rolling thickness)

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Sift the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the flour.
Mix the beaten eggs and rose water into the flour mixture.
Add melted butter until the dough is thick enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Bake on baking sheets.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be rolled and cut.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the cakes.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps bring the dough to a rollable thickness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to browning as the cakes bake.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.