Name: Opera Caramel Frostixo
Ingredients: 1½ cups brown sugar; ¾ cup thin cream; ½ tablespoon butter; 1 cup flour; ¼ teaspoon baking powder; 2 tablespoons shortening; ¼ cup ice water; 1 teaspoon butter (for surface)

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Opera Caramel Frostixo

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, cook brown sugar, thin cream, and butter until a ball forms when tested in cold water.
Beat the mixture until it is ready to spread.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
Rub in shortening and mix with ice water to form a stiff dough.
Turn the dough onto a floured board, pat, and roll to ¼ inch thick.
Spread 1 teaspoon of butter over the surface, sprinkle with flour, and fold the dough over.
Roll out again into a long strip, then roll like a jelly roll.
Cut from the end as needed and roll out from the middle.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

Spice Cake344 recipes

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Opera Caramel Frostixo