Name: Another Trifle
Ingredients: sponge cake; ½ cup champagne or white wine; 1 inch thick preserved fruit; colored whipped cream; currant jelly

Why it works: Champagne and currant work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Another Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Place sponge cake in a dish.
Pour ½ cup of champagne or white wine over the cake.
Layer 1‑inch thick preserved fruit on top.
Spread colored whipped cream over the fruit.
Garnish with a few bits of currant jelly.

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.

Champagne + curranttop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Champagne + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together83 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Cream + curranttop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,829 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake: Forms the base layer that soaks up the wine and gives the trifle its soft structure.
Champagne or white wine: Moistens the sponge cake and adds a light acidic flavor to the layers.
Preserved fruit: Adds sweetness and fruity flavor between the cake and the cream.
Whipped cream: Adds richness and a light, creamy texture over the fruit layer.