Name: Tea Cake
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup lard; ½ pound chopped raisins or currants

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 ↓

Tea Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sour milk, baking soda, and lard until well combined.
Fold in the chopped raisins or currants.
Roll the dough to a thickness of 2 inches.

Bake and serve

Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
Split the cake open, spread with butter, and serve hot.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Raisins or currants: Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the cake.