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 ↓
Scotch Biscuits
Ingredients
Directions
Pour boiling water over butter and let it cool until nearly cold.
Mix the cooled butter and water with the flour.
Add caraway seeds and powdered sugar to taste.
Roll out the dough, not too thin.
Wet the surface with rose water and sift sugar on top.
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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Caraway + rosetop 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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Butter + sugartop 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, butter, sugar, rose):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Carawaythe original
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, rose. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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