Name: Polish Baba
Ingredients: 3 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour; ½ cup coarse sea salt; 1 ⅓ cups sugar; 7 oz sultanas (raisins); A pinch of saffron boiled in water; 22 eggs; 2 lbs butter; ⅓ cup sherry; ⅓ cup cream

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Polish Baba

Ingredients

Directions

Divide the flour into four parts. Make a hollow mound with one part and work in the yeast mixed with a small cup of tepid water.
With the other three parts of flour, make a hollow mound and work in the sugar, salt, cream, eggs, and butter.
Once the leavened flour has risen properly, mix the two lumps together well.
Finally, mix in the sherry, saffron, and raisins.
Take a small part of the dough to line the mold before adding the raisins.
Use a tall, tapering mold for baking.
Bake for about 1.5 hours.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + saffrontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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

Swap the saffron

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, egg, butter, sherry, cream):

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Capersfits about as well
Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, egg, butter, sherry, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.