Name: Almond Icings
Ingredients: 5 pounds cream; ½ pound chocolate; 8 pounds cream; 3 pounds almond nuts

Why it works: Almond and nuts work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 394 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Icings

Ingredients

5 pounds cream
½ pound chocolate
8 pounds cream
3 pounds almond nuts

Directions

Dissolve 5 pounds of cream and pour it into a tray.
Melt ½ pound of chocolate in a basin and add 8 pounds of cream.
Stir in 3 pounds of almond nuts and mix well.
Pour the mixture over the first layer and spread it evenly.
Melt another 5 pounds of white cream and spread it over the last layer.

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 + nutstop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together394 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).