Name: Excellent Soda Buns
Ingredients: ½ pound flour; 3 ounces butter; 4 ounces sugar; 1 ounce candied orange or lemon rind, finely shredded; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; ½ cup cream or milk; 2 egg yolks; 1 egg white; ⅓ teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Excellent Soda Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Work the butter into the flour until crumbly.
Mix in the sugar, salt, candied rind, and nutmeg.
Pour in the boiling cream or milk and mix slightly.
Add the egg yolks and one egg white, then mix well.
Dust in the baking soda and beat until combined.
Grease a baking sheet with butter.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the sheet.
Bake in the oven for 15 to 25 minutes until firm and golden.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 orange

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Orangethe original

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