Name: A Cup of Pine-Apple Made of Almond Paste
Ingredients: 1½ pounds almond paste; saffron infusion (for coloring); Prussian blue and carmine (for coloring); pineapple marmalade; small meringues filled with preserves

Why it works: Almond and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Cup of Pine-Apple Made of Almond Paste

Ingredients

1½ pounds almond paste
saffron infusion (for coloring)
Prussian blue and carmine (for coloring)
pineapple marmalade
small meringues filled with preserves

Directions

Color one-fifth of the almond paste light green.
Divide the remaining paste into two equal parts; color one yellow and the other lilac.
Cover two half pineapple molds (3.5 inches in diameter) with yellow paste.
Make a cup (6 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep) with the lilac paste using the parings for the foot.
Roll out the green paste and cut it into long leaves resembling pineapple leaves.
Dry the whole as directed in the preceding article.
Assemble the foot and cup together, placing the filled pineapple halves in the center.
Decorate with leaves on top and around the pineapple.
Finish by adding a border of small meringues filled with preserves.

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 + saffrontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together306 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Almond + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together428 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Saffron + pineappletop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).