Name: Hard Times Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup hot water; 1 cup raisins; 2 cups flour; 3 tablespoons shortening; 1 cup chocolate; spices to taste (cinnamon, mace, clove); 2 teaspoons baking powder; nuts (optional)

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Hard Times Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Boil sugar, raisins, and shortening together for 5 minutes.
Let the mixture cool.
Bake in layers with a soft filling.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake moist and tender.
Shortening: Adds fat, which gives the cake a tender, soft crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise.
Raisins: Add sweetness and moisture, and soften as they cook.
Chocolate: Adds rich flavor and depth to the cake and filling.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, flour, chocolate, cinnamon, mace, clove):

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Pistachiofits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, flour, chocolate, cinnamon, mace, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.