Name: Timbale Aux Fruits a LA Nationale
Ingredients: 1 pint water; 4 oz sugar; ⅓ cup wine or maraschino; seasonal fruits (e.g., pineapple, peaches, apricots); glace cherries for decoration; angelica for decoration; butter for greasing

Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Timbale Aux Fruits a LA Nationale

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the baba-paste to fill a quart timbale mold, well buttered, and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).
Once baked, turn it out onto a sieve and let it cool.
In a saucepan, combine the water and sugar, and boil until a thick syrup forms.
Add the wine or maraschino to the syrup.
Prepare the fruits by cutting them into pieces and add them to the syrup, simmer for two minutes, then drain.
Scoop out the center of the cake, fill it with the fruit, and pour some syrup over the fruit and cake.
Decorate with glace cherries and angelica cut into leaf shapes.
Place the timbale back in the oven to heat through and serve hot. It can also be served cold with 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.

Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pineapple + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together377 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pineapple + peachtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together168 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together117 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pineapple + angelicatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together60 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, wine, pineapple, peach, apricot, butter):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Peppermintfits better
Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine, pineapple, peach, apricot, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.