Name: Molded Wheat
Ingredients: Cracked wheat, rolled wheat, or pearl wheat; Sugar; Cream; Fruit juice; Jelly (for decoration); Fresh berries (optional)

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Molded Wheat

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cracked wheat, rolled wheat, or pearl wheat according to your preferred method.
Pour the cooked wheat into molds and let it cool until set.
Serve the molded wheat with sugar and cream or fruit juice.
Decorate with bits of jelly shaped like stars or crosses on top.
Optionally, serve with fresh berries, either mashed or whole, arranged around the mold.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together681 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,071 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).