Name: Cream-cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients: ½ cup Philadelphia cream cheese; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 hard-boiled egg yolks, powdered; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon paprika; crackers (such as saltines or water-thin biscuits)

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 ↓

Cream-cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

½ cup Philadelphia cream cheese
2 tablespoons butter
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, powdered
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon paprika
crackers (such as saltines or water-thin biscuits)

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the cream cheese and butter until smooth.
Add the powdered egg yolks, salt, and paprika; mix well.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between crackers.

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 + biscuittop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + eggtop 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 the creamy, smooth body and rich flavour of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the filling soft, smooth and spreadable.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Contribute richness and a dry, crumbly-to-creamy texture when powdered into the filling.
Crackers: Provide the crisp, sturdy base that holds the filling between two layers.

“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.