Name: Almond Caramel Baskets
Ingredients: picked almonds; cochineal (for coloring); butter (for greasing); sugar (for spinning)

Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Caramel Baskets

Ingredients

picked almonds
cochineal (for coloring)
butter (for greasing)
sugar (for spinning)

Directions

Blanch and slice the almonds into long pieces.
Color the almonds pink with cochineal in a small copper pan over gentle heat, stirring until dry.
Grease a sheet of copper or tin with butter.
Arrange the pink almonds on the greased sheet in the shape of half the desired mold.
Prepare sugar for spinning and spin it over the almonds until they are coated.
Turn the mold and spin sugar over the other side, then attach the almonds together with more sugar.
Trim any excess parts and decorate the basket with small pieces of pistachios, biscuits, or liqueur drops.

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 + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).