Name: Hardbreak Taffies
Ingredients: coconut (narrow and broad); peanuts; almonds; walnuts; cotton-seed oil

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hardbreak Taffies

Ingredients

Directions

Ensure your marble slab is clean and oiled before use.
If using a stone slab, soak it with cotton-seed oil until saturated to prevent sticking.
Prepare the slab as you would for any other recipe, placing short bars close together.
Pour the taffy mixture into the frame, adjusting the bars if necessary to prevent overflow.

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 + walnuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Coconut + peanuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together433 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Coconut + almondtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,093 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Coconut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Peanut + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).