Name: Devils Food Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 5 eggs; 1 cup buttermilk; 1 teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Sugar and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devils Food Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add it to the mixture.

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 + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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).
Butter + buttermilktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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