Name: Lemon Gingerbread
Ingredients: 2 lemons (zest and juice); ⅓ cup brandy; 1 pound all-purpose flour; ½ pound molasses; ½ pound melted butter; 2 teaspoons ground ginger; 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lemon Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Grate the rinds of the lemons and squeeze out the juice.
In a large bowl, mix the grated lemon zest with the flour.
Make a well in the flour and add the molasses, melted butter, lemon juice, and brandy.
Stir in the ground ginger and cayenne pepper until well combined.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, flour, molasses, butter, ginger, pepper):

Raisinfits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Cherryfits about as well

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