Name: Neapolitan Creams
Ingredients: plain cream; pink coconut cream; orange cream; plain chocolate cream

Why it works: Coconut and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,107 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Neapolitan Creams

Ingredients

plain cream
pink coconut cream
orange cream
plain chocolate cream

Directions

Press plain cream into a sheet ½ inch thick.
Repeat with pink coconut, orange, and plain chocolate creams.
Layer the coconut sheet on the plain cream, orange on the coconut, and chocolate on the orange.
Press together and cut into squares or desired shapes.
Roll any cut edges into balls for variegated creams.

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.

Coconut + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,107 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together584 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Orange + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together928 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
Cream + coconuttop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,223 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).