Name: Currant Buns
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon egg; 3 tablespoons currants; 1 tablespoon raisins

Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Currant Buns

Ingredients

1 teaspoon egg
3 tablespoons currants
1 tablespoon raisins

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, combine the plain muffin mixture with the egg, currants, and raisins.
Spoon the mixture into greased muffin pans.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes 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.

Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,556 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).