Name: Banbury Tarts
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins; ¼ pound citron; 4 figs, chopped fine; Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon; 1 cup sugar; 3 rolled crackers, crushed; 3 tablespoons water

Why it works: Raisin and fig work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Banbury Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Combine raisins, citron, chopped figs, lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar, crushed crackers, and water in a saucepan.
Heat the mixture through but do not cook.
Use a round cutter to cut pastry and add 1 tablespoon of filling to each piece.

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.

Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,742 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,241 recipes

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