Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Drop Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the yolks of 10 eggs with 1 tablespoon of rose water for 30 minutes.
Add 6 ounces of white sugar and beat together for another 30 minutes.
Fold in 6 ounces of flour and ½ ounce of caraway seeds.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto white paper.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rose + carawaytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together93 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 caraway
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, rose, sugar, flour):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Carawaythe original
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rose, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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