Name: Sun-raysed Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 4 large eggs; 10 oz flour; 1 lb SUN-RAYSED currants; 1 lb lemon peel; 1 lb almonds; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sun-raysed Fruit Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the SUN-RAYSED currants and lemon peel.
Sift the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar, then fold it into the mixture.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Swap the currant

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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