Name: Pains of Apricots a LA Royal
Ingredients: ½ cup butter, softened; 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted; 6 large eggs, separated; 1 packet German yeast; ½ cup pistachio nuts, blanched and chopped; ½ cup pineapple, diced; ½ cup cherries, pitted and chopped; Butter for greasing the mold; Paper for lining

Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pains of Apricots a LA Royal

Ingredients

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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the softened butter in a bowl.
Gradually add the sifted flour and mix well.
Incorporate the egg yolks and 2 whole eggs, beating until blended.
Add the remaining 4 eggs and continue beating until smooth.
Check the yeast sponge; it should be bubbly and risen.
Gently mix the yeast sponge into the batter until well combined.
Prepare a brioche mold by buttering it thoroughly.
Blanch the pistachio nuts in boiling water, then remove the skins and chop coarsely.
Dice the pineapple into small squares.
Line the inside of the mold with a thin layer of batter.
Mix the cherries, pineapple, and pistachio nuts into the remaining batter.
Fill the mold with the batter, leaving some space for rising.
Butter a double layer of paper and tie it around the top of the mold.
Place the mold on a baking sheet and let it prove until doubled in size.

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.

Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together505 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pistachio + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,180 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

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, pistachio, nuts):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, pistachio, nuts. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.