Name: Tutti Frutti Sponge
Ingredients: 30 California grapes, sliced; 2 small bananas, sliced; 3 or 4 pears, sliced; 1 pint candied cherries or preserves (without juice); eggs

Why it works: Banana and pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 87 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Tutti Frutti Sponge

Ingredients

30 California grapes, sliced
2 small bananas, sliced
3 or 4 pears, sliced
1 pint candied cherries or preserves (without juice)
eggs

Directions

Prepare the sponge as you would for pineapple.
Before beating, add the sliced grapes, bananas, pears, and cherries.
Mix in the eggs.
Serve the sponge the next day with ice cream or whipped cream.

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.

Banana + peartop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together87 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Grape + peartop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together252 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Grape + bananatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together496 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Banana + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pear + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together538 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).