Name: Coffee-cakes
Ingredients: 1 lb flour; 1 lb butter; 1 lb powdered sugar; 1 egg; 1 oz caraway seeds; warm milk; 1 tablespoon rose water

Why it works: Flour and caraway 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 ↓

Coffee-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a 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, mix flour, butter, powdered sugar, egg, and caraway seeds.
Add warm milk and rose water to the mixture.
Roll out the dough thinly and cut into cakes using a wineglass.
Place the cakes on baking tins and bake until 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.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together93 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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 caraway

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Carawaythe original
Allspicefits less well

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