Name: Chocolate Cakes
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon castor sugar; 1 teaspoon flour; melted butter (for greasing); vanilla (to taste); cocoa (to taste); baking powder (to taste); chocolate icing (for topping); minced pistachios (for garnish)

Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Mix the castor sugar and flour together.
Thoroughly butter the dariole moulds with melted butter, then dust them with the sugar and flour mixture.
In a bowl, combine the vanilla, cocoa, and baking powder.
Pour the mixture into the prepared moulds, filling them three-quarters full.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Allow the cakes to cool for a few minutes before turning them out.
Cover each cake with chocolate icing and sprinkle with minced pistachios.
Serve once the icing has set.

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.

Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together357 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together505 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together407 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, vanilla, chocolate, pistachio):

Almondfits better
Hazelnutfits better
Chestnutfits better
Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, vanilla, chocolate, pistachio. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.