Name: Banbury Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound currants, cleaned and dried; ¼ pound beef suet, finely minced; 3 ounces candied orange rind, shredded; 3 ounces candied lemon rind, shredded; a few grains of salt; ¼ ounce pounded cinnamon; ¼ ounce pounded nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Banbury Cakes

Ingredients

1 pound currants, cleaned and dried
¼ pound beef suet, finely minced
3 ounces candied orange rind, shredded
3 ounces candied lemon rind, shredded
a few grains of salt
¼ ounce pounded cinnamon
¼ ounce pounded nutmeg

Directions

Mix the currants, beef suet, candied orange rind, and candied lemon rind in a bowl.
Add a few grains of salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the mixture.
Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, orange, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg):

Limefits better
Figfits better
Blueberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, orange, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.