Name: Roe Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups flour (dried and sifted); 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 cup sugar; 4 eggs, beaten; 1 teaspoon lemon essence; ½ cup milk; Optional: currants or peel

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roe Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter, flour, baking powder, and sugar.
Mix in the beaten eggs, lemon essence, and milk.
Drop the mixture onto a baking tin as roughly as possible.
Bake for 30 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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 currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, lemon, milk):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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