Name: Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients: 1 egg; ½ cup pulverized sugar; 2 tablespoons butter; ⅓ cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 cups flour; granulated sugar (for sprinkling); ground cinnamon (for sprinkling)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cinnamon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and pulverized sugar.
Add the egg and mix well.
Stir in the milk and baking powder.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

Bake

Pour the batter into a square tin.
Sprinkle the top with a mixture of granulated sugar and ground cinnamon.
Bake for about 20 minutes or 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during baking.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Pulverized sugar: Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.

“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.