Name: Cherry Short Cake
Ingredients: sweet ripe cherries; butter; sugar (to taste); shortcake (prepared as for strawberry shortcake)

Why it works: Butter and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,149 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cherry Short Cake

Ingredients

sweet ripe cherries
butter
sugar (to taste)
shortcake (prepared as for strawberry shortcake)

Directions

Bake a shortcake as you would for strawberry shortcake.
Once baked, split the cake in half and butter the inside of each half.
Remove the pits from the cherries and add them generously to one half of the cake.
Sweeten the cherries to taste, then place the other half of the cake on top.
Serve immediately to avoid sogginess; do not stack multiple cakes.

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.

Butter + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,149 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,060 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).