Name: A Biscuit Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound flour; 5 eggs; 8 ounces sugar; a little rose or orange-flower water

Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

A Biscuit Cake

Ingredients

1 pound flour
5 eggs
8 ounces sugar
a little rose or orange-flower water

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Beat the eggs well and strain them.

Bake

Mix the flour, sugar, and rose or orange-flower water thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake 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.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,584 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + rosetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,643 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and egg 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: Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the batter as they set in the oven.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.

“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.