Name: Cinnamon Sandwiches
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons fine granulated sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; Wheat bread or Boston brown bread; Butter

Why it works: Cinnamon and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 537 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cinnamon Sandwiches

Ingredients

6 tablespoons fine granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Wheat bread or Boston brown bread
Butter

Directions

Prepare

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.
Butter the slices of bread.

Assemble and serve

Sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly over the buttered side of one slice.
Top with another slice of bread, buttered side down.
Slice the sandwich thinly and serve.

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.

Cinnamon + wheattop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together537 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,784 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Fine granulated sugar: Provides sweetness and caramelizes lightly on the buttered bread surface.
Ground cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and flavor to the sugar coating.
Butter: Adds fat and richness and helps the sugar mixture adhere to the bread.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.