Name: Lunch Dainty
Ingredients: whites of eggs; powdered sugar; English walnuts (or any preferred nut); Uneeda Biscuits

Why it works: Walnut and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lunch Dainty

Ingredients

whites of eggs
powdered sugar
English walnuts (or any preferred nut)
Uneeda Biscuits

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Beat the whites of eggs with powdered sugar until stiff.
Mix in finely minced English walnuts or your preferred nuts.
Spread the mixture on Uneeda Biscuits.
Place the biscuits on a platter and put them in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until the icing begins to turn light brown.
Let cool and serve.

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.

Walnut + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together58 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,147 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).