Name: Queen Cake
Ingredients: 1 lb. flour; 1 lb. green candied citron; 8 oz. blanched almonds; ½ lb. seedless Sultana raisins; ⅓ cup Madeira wine

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Queen Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Sift the flour together with baking powder and cream of tartar five or six times.
Soften the butter and cream it with the sugar until almost white.
Gradually stir in the milk, alternating with a handful of flour to prevent separation.
Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them in alternately with the remaining flour.
Dust the shredded citron, almonds, and raisins with flour before mixing them in.
Bake in ordinary molds or shallow pans.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together423 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).