Name: Almond Sandwiches
Ingredients: almond paste; yolks of eggs; raspberry jam; white icing; pink icing; powdered sugar

Why it works: Almond and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 552 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Almond Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Soften almond paste with egg yolks to form a dough.
Roll the dough into a thin sheet, about 1/16 inch thick.
Cut the sheet into two equal pieces.
Spread raspberry jam on one piece and place the other on top.
Press them together using a rolling pin.
Dock the sheet with a fine docker, spacing holes evenly.
Let it sit for a day to harden, then cut into two pieces.
Lightly ice one piece with white icing and the other with pink icing.
Cut into pieces about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.
Place on wire trays and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until the icing is light brown.

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 + raspberrytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together552 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Raspberry + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,101 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

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