Name: Souffle Tartlets a LA Reine
Ingredients: 1 lemon, grated; ¼ cup butter; 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar; 1 tablespoon granulated sugar; ½ cup milk; 3 tablespoons superfine flour; 5 eggs; ⅓ cup apricot jam

Why it works: Vanilla and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Souffle Tartlets a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the lemon zest, butter, vanilla sugar, granulated sugar, and milk. Bring to a boil.
Mix the flour with ½ cup of milk until smooth. Stir this mixture into the boiling milk and cook for 2 minutes until it forms a smooth paste.
Separate the eggs, placing the whites in a clean bowl and the yolks in another. Add 2 yolks to the paste and stir well.
Add the remaining 3 yolks and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool on ice.
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold half into the soufflé mixture, then fold in the remaining half.
Line 32 tartlet tins with apricot jam, spreading about ⅓ teaspoon in each. Fill with the soufflé mixture.
Roll out puff pastry scraps into a square, cut into strips, and place on top of the tartlets.

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.

Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together608 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together826 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vanilla, sugar, milk, flour, egg, apricot):

Figfits better
Peachfits better
Bananafits better
Lemonthe original

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