Name: Egyptian Pudding
Ingredients: Bavarian cream; burnt sugar; figs, cut into small pieces; whipped cream (optional); cake (optional)

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Egyptian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a good Bavarian cream.
Add enough burnt sugar to color it light brown.
Mix in the small pieces of figs.
Mould the pudding and serve it with or without whipped cream alongside any nice cake.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,241 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + figtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together523 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).