Why it works: Orange and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Oranges
Ingredients
Directions
Slice the oranges.
Mix with powdered sugar.
Strew grated cocoa-nut over the top.
Alternatively, serve whole with the skins quartered and turned down, forming a pyramid with bananas and white grapes.
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.
-
Orange + cocoatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together53 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
-
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Sugar + cocoatop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together956 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Swap the cocoa
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Cocoathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
You might also like
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes
Orange Gelatin100 recipes
Orange Sherbet73 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.