Name: Syrup Sauces
Ingredients: fruit juices; sugar; flour; wine or nutmeg

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Syrup Sauces

Ingredients

fruit juices
sugar
flour
wine or nutmeg

Directions

Heat the fruit juices in a saucepan.
Add sugar to sweeten to taste.
Thicken the mixture with a little flour.
Flavor with a splash of wine or a pinch of nutmeg.

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + winetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

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