Name: Orange Madeleine
Ingredients: 1 layer of delicate cake; lemon or orange juice; orange marmalade; orange glaze; finely chopped pistachio nuts

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Madeleine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a layer of delicate cake, seasoning it with lemon or orange juice.
Turn the cake upside down on a cloth.
Spread orange marmalade over the cake.
Spread orange glaze over the marmalade.
Sprinkle finely chopped pistachio nuts on top.
Serve hot.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together431 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Orange + pistachiotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).
Orange + nutstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together280 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).