Name: To Ice and Ornament a Wedding-Cake
Ingredients: best quality eggs; fresh butter; milk; currants

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 ↓

To Ice and Ornament a Wedding-Cake

Ingredients

best quality eggs
fresh butter
milk
currants

Directions

Pick over, wash, and dry the currants before using.
Use a large bowl for mixing and beating the cake ingredients.
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Mix all ingredients well and bake immediately to prevent heaviness.
Cover the top of the cake with thick paper to prevent over-browning.
Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, checking for doneness with a stiff broom-splint.
Allow the cake to cool in the pan to prevent it from becoming heavy.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).