Name: Victoria Pudding
Ingredients: sponge cake; whipped cream; red cherries, finely chopped; Chocolate Sauce

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Victoria Pudding

Ingredients

sponge cake
whipped cream
red cherries, finely chopped
Chocolate Sauce

Directions

Bake a sponge cake in a round pan with a hole in the center.
Fill the hole with whipped cream.
Sprinkle the top with finely chopped red cherries.
Surround the cake with Chocolate Sauce.

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 + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Chocolate + saucetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together354 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).