Name: Plum Buns
Ingredients: 2 pounds of mixture; ½ pound of currants; ¼ pound of candied orange peel, cut into small pieces; ½ nutmeg, grated; ½ ounce of mixed spices (such as allspice, cinnamon, etc.)

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Buns

Ingredients

2 pounds of mixture
½ pound of currants
¼ pound of candied orange peel, cut into small pieces
½ nutmeg, grated
½ ounce of mixed spices (such as allspice, cinnamon, etc.)

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the mixture, currants, candied orange peel, grated nutmeg, and mixed spices.
Shape the mixture into buns.
Use a knife to jag the edges of each bun.
Proceed to bake as you would with plain buns.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together727 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 (orange, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon):

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.