Name: Creams and Jams
Ingredients: 9 egg yolks; 1 grated nutmeg; 2 perfumed plums (or omit if disliked); 2 tablespoons rose or orange flower water; ½ pound fine sugar; 1¼ pounds butter; 1 pound fine flour; cold water

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Creams and Jams

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the yolks of 9 eggs in a bowl.
Add grated nutmeg, dissolved plums, rose or orange flower water, and sugar. Mix well.
Melt 1¼ pounds of butter and stir it into the mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine 1 pound of flour with cold water to make a paste.
Roll out the paste, gradually adding 1 pound of fresh butter while shaking a little flour on each layer.
Finish the cake as desired.

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.

Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together185 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 plum

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Plumthe original

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