Name: Bread Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups bread dough; 6 tablespoons butter; 3 eggs; 1 cup granulated sugar; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg; ¾ teaspoon ground cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread Cake

Ingredients

Directions

When the bread dough is light and ready for molding, turn it into a bowl.
Add the butter, eggs, sugar, and spices.
Beat with your hand until entirely free from stringiness.
Add the chopped raisins, which have been dusted with flour.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove):

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Raisinthe original
Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.