Name: Jelly Sandwiches
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons crabapple jelly; 3 tablespoons cottage cheese; cream (if needed); white bread; butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Jelly Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Mix crabapple jelly and cottage cheese in a bowl until smooth.
If the cottage cheese is too stiff, stir in a little cream.

Assemble the sandwiches

Butter slices of white bread.
Spread half the slices with jelly and the other half with cheese.
Combine the two kinds together to form sandwiches.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cottage cheese + buttertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together376 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Cottage cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together72 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Cottage cheese + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together146 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Crabapple jelly: Adds sweetness and a tart fruity flavor that contrasts with the mild cheese.
Cottage cheese: Provides a soft, creamy, mildly tangy filling that spreads easily.
White bread: Forms the structure that holds the filling in a sandwich.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the bread and keeps it from soaking up the filling.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.