Name: Semolina Pudding
Ingredients: ½ lb flour; 2 oz caraway seeds; ½ cup butter; 1 cup sugar; mace to taste; grated nutmeg to taste; 3 eggs; milk as needed

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Semolina Pudding

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).
Cream the butter in a bowl, then add the sugar, mace, nutmeg, and caraway seeds. Beat well.
Whisk the eggs and gradually mix them into the butter mixture.
Add the flour, using a little milk if necessary to achieve a cake-batter consistency.
Pour the mixture into a tin lined with buttered paper.
Bake for 1 to 2 hours.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together200 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Macethe original

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