Name: A Good Plum Oaxe
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ½ cup flour; ¼ pound cut peels and citron; 1 cup currants; grated zest of 3 lemons; ½ nutmeg, grated; ½ ounce pudding spice; ⅓ cup brandy; chopped sweet almonds (to taste)

Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Good Plum Oaxe

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Beat the butter until creamy, similar to making pound cake.
Mix in the flour, cut peels, citron, currants, lemon zest, nutmeg, pudding spice, brandy, and chopped almonds.
Line a hoop with paper and butter the bottom and sides.
Pour the mixture into the prepared hoop.
Bake for some time, checking for doneness like you would with a Savoy cake.
Remove the hoop when done, but leave the paper on.

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.

Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, almond):

Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.