Name: Pound-cake
Ingredients: 1 pound butter; 1 pound sugar; 1 pound flour; 10 eggs; 1 nutmeg, grated; ½ cup brandy; rose-water or essence of lemon to taste

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg 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 ↓

Pound-cake

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the salt from the butter and beat it with the sugar until creamy.
Sift the flour and beat the eggs, separating the whites and yolks.
Alternately add the flour and eggs to the butter and sugar, continuing to beat until light.
Add the grated nutmeg, brandy, and rose-water or essence of lemon.
Continue beating until well combined, then butter the pan and preheat the oven.

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 + nutmegtop 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 + 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).
Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together560 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 nutmeg

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

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Allspicefits less well
Clovefits less well

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