Name: Sweet Sandwiches
Ingredients: slices of brown or white bread; grapefruit marmalade; chopped candied ginger; pineapple preserves; candied cherries; bar-le-duc; cream cheese; grated maple sugar; chopped walnuts

Why it works: Grapefruit and pineapple work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 95 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweet Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Spread grapefruit marmalade on slices of bread and top with chopped candied ginger.
Mix pineapple preserves with candied cherries and spread on bread.
Spread bar-le-duc on bread and top with cream cheese.
Combine grated maple sugar and chopped walnuts, then spread on bread.

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.

Grapefruit + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together95 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Grapefruit + gingertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ginger + pineappletop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together559 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Grapefruit + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together46 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ginger + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the grapefruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, ginger, pineapple, cream cheese, sugar, walnut):

Coconutfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Grapefruitthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ginger, pineapple, cream cheese, sugar, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.