Name: Cocoa-nut Gingerbread
Ingredients: 10 ounces fine wheat flour; 6 ounces rice flour (or ground rice); grated rind of 1 lemon; ¾ ounce ground ginger; 1 pound treacle; 5 ounces fresh butter; 5 ounces sugar; 5 ounces grated cocoa

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, mix the wheat flour, rice flour, lemon rind, and ground ginger.
In a saucepan, melt the treacle, butter, and sugar together until combined.
Pour the nearly boiling mixture over the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until smooth.
Let the mixture cool completely.
Once cool, add the grated cocoa and mix well.

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.

Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Wheat + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together423 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,196 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wheat + gingertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, rice, lemon, ginger, butter, sugar):

Almondfits better
Milletfits better
Chickpeafits better
Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, rice, lemon, ginger, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.