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Eric Lanlard's Eton Mess Recipe

Eric Lanlard, Master Pâtissier, combines his favourite ingredients to make a naughty Eton Mess!

By lovefood · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,385 recipes mention both. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

6 people
Prep20 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By lovefood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Vanilla + strawberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Raspberry + strawberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Raspberry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together948 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, vanilla, sugar, cheese, strawberry):

  1. Raspberrythe original
  2. Blackberryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Bananaabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Pineappleabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vanilla, sugar, cheese, strawberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).