Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
BicTier Buns
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the flour and sugar in a large bowl.
Melt the butter in warm water.
Add the melted butter and rose-water to the flour mixture.
Knead in the yeast to form a light dough.
Incorporate the caraway comfits into the dough.
Shape the dough and place on a baking sheet.
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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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rose + carawaytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together93 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
Swap the caraway
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, rose):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Carawaythe original
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, rose. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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