Name: Artificial Strawberries
Ingredients: almond paste; pounded sugar; syrup of raspberries or other fruit; carmine; strong gum

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Artificial Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make almond paste and roll it into strawberry-sized pieces.
Shape the pieces in your hands to resemble strawberries and insert a piece of whisk for the stalk.
Place the prepared strawberries in a sieve filled with pounded sugar to stand upright.
Sift coarse sugar to remove dust and dip the strawberries into syrup, then into the sugar to create the seeds.
Once dry, brush the strawberries with carmine dissolved in strong gum for shine.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together746 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).