Name: Fingers with Almonds
Ingredients: lady finger preparation; sugar for dredging; finely chopped almonds; apricot jam

Why it works: Almond and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fingers with Almonds

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

lady finger preparation
sugar for dredging
finely chopped almonds
apricot jam

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Shape the lady finger preparation into smaller fingers.
Dredge them with sugar and sprinkle with finely chopped almonds.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
To assemble, coat the flat side of two fingers with apricot jam and stick them together.

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.

Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).