Name: Princess Tartlets
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 cup sugar; 2 eggs; 3 oz almonds, chopped; 6 oz stale cake crumbs; ⅓ cup sherry

Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Princess Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Add the sugar and stir for a few minutes, but do not let it boil.
Stir in the eggs, chopped almonds, cake crumbs, and sherry until well combined.
Make tartlets using puff pastry and fill with the mixture.

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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together517 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).