Name: Chocolate Wafers
Ingredients: ¼ pound grated vanilla chocolate; ¼ pound confectioner's sugar; ¼ pound grated almonds (with a few bitter ones mixed); 6 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chocolate Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

¼ pound grated vanilla chocolate
¼ pound confectioner's sugar
¼ pound grated almonds (with a few bitter ones mixed)
6 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Directions

In a bowl, stir together the confectioner's sugar and beaten egg whites.
Add the grated chocolate and almonds to the mixture.
Drop spoonfuls onto waxed paper, spacing them about 2 inches apart.

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.

Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,020 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vanilla, chocolate, sugar, egg):

Almondthe original
Hazelnutfits about as well
Chestnutfits about as well
Pecansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, chocolate, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Chocolate Cream171 recipes

Vanilla Ice Cream108 recipes

Chocolate Cookies76 recipes

Chocolate Fudge55 recipes

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Chocolate Wafers