Name: Apple Trifle
Ingredients: slices of sponge cake; apple pulp; custard; whipped cream; apple jelly; crystallized cherries; strips of Angelica

Why it works: Apple and angelica work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Apple Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Layer slices of sponge cake in a glass dish.
Cover the cake with apple pulp.
Pour custard over the apple pulp.
Chill the dish.
Spread whipped cream on top.
Garnish with apple jelly, crystallized cherries, and strips of Angelica.

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.

Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cream + angelicatop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).