Name: Chocolate Fruit Ice Cream
Ingredients: ½ pound assorted French candied or preserved fruits, cut into small pieces; whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla; chopped almonds, lightly browned; chopped pistachios

Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Chocolate Fruit Ice Cream

Ingredients

½ pound assorted French candied or preserved fruits, cut into small pieces
whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla
chopped almonds, lightly browned
chopped pistachios

Directions

Make the ice cream

Make a chocolate cream and set it in the freezer.
Once set, fold in the assorted fruits.
Transfer the mixture into a melon-shaped mold.

Serve

To serve, turn the cream onto a platter.
Surround it with whipped cream.
Sprinkle chopped almonds and pistachios on top for decoration.

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 + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Vanilla + pistachiotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together407 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cream + pistachiotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together634 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Assorted candied or preserved fruits: Adds chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the frozen cream.
Whipped cream: Adds light, creamy richness and moisture alongside the chocolate cream.
Chopped almonds: Adds crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor.