Name: Ornamental Icing
Ingredients: white icing; pink icing; chocolate icing; granulated sugar; powdered chocolate; rolled rock candy; egg white or gum-water

Why it works: Chocolate and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ornamental Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare white, pink, and chocolate icing.
Use a piping cone to draw fine lines on the surface, one inch apart, to create a grid.
Fill the squares alternately with white and pink icing or chocolate and pink icing.
Ensure the icing is soft enough to run smoothly without merging.
For added decoration, brush a design with egg white or gum-water and cover with granulated sugar or powdered chocolate.
Shake off excess sugar or candy.

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.

Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).