Name: Bread Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups bread dough; ½ cup butter; 3 eggs; 2 cups sugar; 1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in butter; 1 lb raisins; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; a little 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 ↓

Bread Cake

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the bread dough, butter, eggs, sugar, and dissolved baking soda.
Add the raisins and nutmeg, then mix well.
Gradually add a little flour until the mixture is well combined.
Let the mixture stand and rise for 1 hour before baking.

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).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 nutmeg

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

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Capersfits less well
Turmericfits less well

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