Name: Butter Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pound butter; ½ pound brown sugar; 3 eggs; rind of 2 lemons; ¼ ounce cinnamon; 1 tablespoon ginger; flour (as needed); powdered almonds (for topping); candied orange-peel (for topping)

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Butter Cakes

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.

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.
Add the eggs, lemon rind, cinnamon, and ginger; mix well.
Gradually add flour until a paste forms.

Shape and bake

Cut the dough into shapes and place on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle powdered almonds and candied orange-peel on top.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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.

Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with sugar to give the cake a rich, tender crumb and flavour.
Brown sugar: Sweetens the dough and adds moisture and a caramel note when baked.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together and shapes.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, lemon, cinnamon, flour, almond):

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Turmericfits better
Gingerthe original

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.