Why it works: Bayberry and clove share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Laxatiye Bitter Tonic
Ingredients
Directions
Finely pulverize all the ingredients.
Sift or bolt the mixture.
Mix all the ingredients well together.
Take a teaspoonful in a gill of hot water.
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.
-
Bayberry + clovetop 24% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together0 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
-
Bayberry + sugartop 65% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together0 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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 bayberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Quincefits better
- Figfits better
- Bayberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Delicate Cake246 recipes
Boiled Frosting69 recipes
Citron Cake68 recipes
Scotch Cake63 recipes