Name: Angel Cake
Ingredients: green apples; raisins; bananas; dough

Why it works: Apple and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 435 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Angel Cake

Ingredients

green apples
raisins
bananas
dough

Directions

Chop up green apples, raisins, and bananas in quantities to suit.
Mix the chopped fruits into the dough.
Feed the mixture to the children.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + bananatop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).