Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Wine Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Heat the wine with the sugar until boiling.
Let it cool to blood temperature.
Beat the eggs well and pour the wine mixture over them.
Stir in the flour and mix well.
Bake
Bake immediately.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Wine + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set into the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Flour
- Provides structure as its proteins set during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps keep its crumb moist and tender.
- Wine
- Supplies the liquid and much of the flavour of the batter.
The step that matters
Let the wine mixture cool to blood temperature. Pouring boiling liquid onto raw eggs can partly cook and curdle them, so the batter may not blend smoothly. Cooling it first keeps the eggs fluid and lets them mix evenly with the wine.
“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.
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