Name: Buns
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; caraway seeds; caraway comfits; 2 cups all-purpose flour

Why it works: Caraway and flour 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 ↓

Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
caraway seeds
caraway comfits
2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix sugar and a few caraway seeds in a bowl.
Shape the mixture into buns using a tablespoon on a baking sheet.
Top each bun with six to eight caraway comfits.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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.

Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + carawaytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).