Name: Maids of Honour
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter (1 stick); 2 eggs; ¼ pound sugar (½ cup); 1 tablespoon boiled sago; 2 ounces grated coconut or ground almonds; rind and juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Butter and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maids of Honour

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add the eggs and beat again.
Mix in the sago, coconut or almonds, and lemon rind and juice.

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.

Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,467 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).