Name: Madeira Cake
Ingredients: 1 ½ cups butter; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 pound powdered white sugar; 3 eggs

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Madeira Cake

Ingredients

1 ½ cups butter
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pound powdered white sugar
3 eggs

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the baking powder with the flour.
Cream the butter until smooth.
Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.
Stir the sugar into the egg whites until well combined.
Combine the butter, egg yolks, and flour mixture.
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.
Beat the entire mixture for 15 minutes.
Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for 1 to 1.5 hours.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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