Name: Orange Cream Bonbons
Ingredients: Grated rind of 1 orange; 1 egg-sized piece of almond paste; ½ teaspoon lemon juice; Confectioners' sugar (sufficient); Saffron (optional, for coloring); Caramel (optional, for coloring); Oil of orange (optional, for flavoring)

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Cream Bonbons

Ingredients

Grated rind of 1 orange
1 egg-sized piece of almond paste
½ teaspoon lemon juice
Confectioners' sugar (sufficient)
Saffron (optional, for coloring)
Caramel (optional, for coloring)
Oil of orange (optional, for flavoring)

Directions

Grate the rind of 1 thick-skinned orange, taking only the yellow part.
Mix the grated rind with the almond paste and lemon juice.
Add enough confectioners' sugar to form a firm, dry paste.
Break off small pieces and roll them into balls the size of small marbles.
Place the balls on plates sprinkled with confectioners' sugar to dry.
Prepare cream as directed for walnuts, coloring with saffron or caramel if desired.
Flavor the cream slightly with oil of orange if using.
Drop the balls into the cream and coat them, repeating if they are not smooth and shiny.

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.

Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together306 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together538 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Orange + saffrontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together185 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, almond, lemon, sugar, saffron):

Orangethe original
Limefits about as well
Vanillafits less well
Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, almond, lemon, sugar, saffron. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.