Name: Smearcase Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 package cream cheese; 2 hard-boiled eggs; 1 small bottle stuffed olives; 1 tablespoon butter; Butter thins

Why it works: Cream cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,747 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Smearcase Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese.
Hard-boil the eggs, then remove the yolks and rub them into the butter and cheese mixture.
Chop the olives and egg whites finely, then add them to the mixture.

Assemble

Spread the mixture on the butter thins.

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 cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream cheese + olivetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,003 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Olive + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cream cheese + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,549 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese: Provides creamy body and a mild tang that binds the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, crumbly texture to the filling.
Stuffed olives: Add salty, briny flavor that contrasts with the rich cheese.
Butter: Adds fat and smoothness, helping the filling spread easily.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.