Name: Rock Cake
Ingredients: 2 pounds flour, well dried; ¾ pound loaf sugar, sifted finely; 1½ pounds butter; 1½ pounds currants; 1 nutmeg; 1½ wineglassfuls brandy (½ cup); grated peel of 1 lemon; 2-3 tablespoons warm milk; yolks of 3 eggs

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rock Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Break the butter into the flour and add warm milk.
Mix all ingredients together.
Beat the yolks of the eggs well.

Shape and bake

Dip small pieces of the paste into the eggs and roll them in your hand.
Place on buttered tins and bake.

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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness by coating the flour and carrying fat through the crumb.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
Currants: Add chewy pockets of fruit and sweetness throughout the cake.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and color from the yolks.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, nutmeg, brandy, lemon, milk):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, nutmeg, brandy, lemon, milk. 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.