Why it works: Strawberry and cream cheese work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 285 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
French Cheese Sandwiches
Ingredients
Directions
Slice brown bread very thin.
Spread a layer of jam or marmalade on one slice.
Add a layer of cream cheese on top of the jam.
Cover with another slice of bread.
Serve for afternoon tea.
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.
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Strawberry + cream cheesetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together285 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Bread + cream cheesetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together166 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Bread + strawberrytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together32 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the strawberry
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cream cheese):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Pineapplefits about as well
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Strawberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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