Name: Guava Shortcake
Ingredients: 2 quarts strawberry guavas; sugar; butter

Why it works: Strawberry and guava share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Guava Shortcake

Ingredients

2 quarts strawberry guavas
sugar
butter

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mash the guavas and mix with sugar. Let stand for 2 hours.
Make a biscuit dough and bake it in a pie tin at 400°F (200°C).
When done and still hot, cut the edges and pull apart with forks.
Turn the crumb sides up and butter them.
Place the sugared guava on both sides, leaving the juice in the container.
Layer one piece on top of the other.
Serve the sugared guava juice as a sauce with the shortcake.

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.

Strawberry + guavatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Strawberry + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Guava + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,060 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).