Name: Rock Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pound butter; ½ pound sugar; 1 pound flour; 3 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon cream of tartar; 1 cup currants; flavoring (to taste)

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rock Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

Beat the butter until creamy.
Mix in the sugar until well combined.
Add the flour, eggs, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, currants, and flavoring.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking tins.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

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.

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).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender while creaming holds air.
Sugar: Creamed with butter, it adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to lift the cakes.