Name: Chocolate Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 1 ½ cups caster sugar; ½ cup scraped chocolate; 5 tablespoons moist sugar; 1 cup boiling water; 3 eggs

Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Gradually beat in the caster sugar.
Dissolve the scraped chocolate and moist sugar in boiling water over heat until smooth.
Stir the chocolate mixture into the butter and sugar.
Beat in the eggs until well combined.

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.

Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,543 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).