Name: Italian Confectioner
Ingredients: oil of sweet almonds; syrup; essence (rose, cinnamon, orange-flower, lemon, cedrat, vanilla, bergamot, etc.); food coloring (optional)

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Italian Confectioner

Ingredients

oil of sweet almonds
syrup
essence (rose, cinnamon, orange-flower, lemon, cedrat, vanilla, bergamot, etc.)
food coloring (optional)

Directions

Prepare various shaped leaden moulds and oil them with sweet almond oil.
Boil syrup until it reaches a blow stage.
Add a drop of your chosen essence and color the syrup as desired.
For white bon-bons, let the sugar cool slightly, then stir until it grains and shines.
Pour the sugar into a funnel and fill the moulds.
Allow the bon-bons to cool and harden, then remove from moulds.
Let them dry for two to three days before packaging.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,287 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the bergamot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, syrup, rose, cinnamon, orange, lemon, vanilla):

Figfits better
Cherryfits better
Peachfits better
Bergamotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, syrup, rose, cinnamon, orange, lemon, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.