Name: Pecan Cake
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 ½ cups flour; 2 cups sugar; ½ cup sweet milk; 8 egg whites; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 small can grated pineapple; 2 cups pecans, chopped fine; whole pecan kernels for topping

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 ↓

Pecan Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugar.
Add a little of the beaten egg, then mix in 1 cup of flour.
Add some milk, then mix in another cup of flour and the remaining milk.
Finally, add the rest of the beaten egg.
For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add powdered sugar.
Mix in the grated pineapple and chopped pecans that have soaked in the pineapple.
Spread the icing over the cake and place whole pecan kernels on top while the icing is still soft.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + pecanstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,416 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together885 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Pineapple + pecanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together294 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 pineapple

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Pineapplethe original

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