Name: Honey Soap
Ingredients: 900 parts curd soap; 100 parts potash soap; 15 parts oil of citronella; burnt sugar coloring (to achieve light brown color); 100 parts clarified honey (optional, for genuine honey soap)

Why it works: Sugar and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,932 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Honey Soap

Ingredients

900 parts curd soap
100 parts potash soap
15 parts oil of citronella
burnt sugar coloring (to achieve light brown color)
100 parts clarified honey (optional, for genuine honey soap)

Directions

Melt the curd soap and potash soap together.
Add the oil of citronella.
Incorporate burnt sugar coloring until the desired light brown color is achieved.
For genuine honey soap, substitute potash soap with clarified honey.

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.

Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,932 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Citronella + honeytop 41% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Citronella + sugartop 50% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3 recipes