Name: Breakfast Fruit Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound cold boiled potatoes, mashed smooth; 1 pound flour; ½ pound finely chopped suet; less than ½ pound currants; 2 ounces moist sugar; 1 teaspoon baking powder

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Breakfast Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, flour, suet, currants, moist sugar, and baking powder.
Roll out the dough to a thickness of ½ inch.
Cut into squares and bake in the preheated oven.

Serve

Serve hot.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,077 recipes
Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,256 recipes
Potato + curranttop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together110 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes: Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the dough.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the dough once it is combined and baked.
Suet: Adds fat that makes the cake rich and tender as it cooks.
Currants: Provide fruit flavour and sweetness throughout the cake.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes lighter.