Name: A Common Plum Cake
Ingredients: 3.5 pounds all-purpose flour; ½ pound granulated sugar; grated nutmeg or pounded mace (to taste); 8 large eggs; ⅓ cup rose-water or rose-syrup; ½ pint yeast; 1 pound unsalted butter, melted; 1.5 pints milk; 2 pounds currants

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 ↓

A Common Plum Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, nutmeg or mace, and yeast.
In another bowl, whisk the eggs and add the melted butter and warm milk.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined.
Let the mixture rise for 1 hour in a warm place.
Fold in the currants gently.
Grease a baking tin and pour in the batter.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

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).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rose + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together494 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + buttertop 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 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 currant

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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