Name: German Custard
Ingredients: 1 pint rich boiled custard; 1 ounce sweet almonds, blanched, roasted, and pounded; ½ ounce pine nuts

Why it works: Almond and pine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 176 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

German Custard

Ingredients

1 pint rich boiled custard
1 ounce sweet almonds, blanched, roasted, and pounded
½ ounce pine nuts

Directions

Add the pounded sweet almonds to the boiled custard.
Stir in the pine nuts.
Serve chilled.

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.

Almond + pinetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together176 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together394 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Pine + nutstop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich boiled custard: Forms the creamy base and gives the dessert its smooth, rich body.
Sweet almonds: Add nutty flavour and a slightly grainy, thickened texture to the custard.
Pine nuts: Add a buttery, nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the smooth custard.