Name: Family Bread-cake
Ingredients: 2 oz. butter; 2 oz. Lisbon sugar; 8 oz. currants; 1 teacupful good milk; 1 oz. additional butter or sugar (optional); 1-2 eggs (optional); 1 teacupful raw cream (optional); carraways (optional, substitute for 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 ↓

Family Bread-cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Knead 2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of sugar, and 8 oz. of currants into white bread dough.
Warm the butter in ½ cup of milk.
For a richer cake, add 1 oz. of butter or sugar, or 1-2 eggs.
Mix in ½ cup of raw cream for improvement.

Bake and serve

Bake in a pan until done; it will stay fresh for several days.
If using carraways instead of currants, serve with butter at tea.

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).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Currant + milktop 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White bread dough (in the method): Provides the base structure and soft crumb of the cake.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps browning in the bake.
Currants: Add fruit sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the cake.
Milk: Adds moisture and softens the dough.