Name: Fruit Pressed Cereal
Ingredients: mixed cereals; milk; chopped dates; chopped almonds; cream or milk

Why it works: Dates and almond work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fruit Pressed Cereal

Ingredients

Directions

Soak mixed cereals in milk until just moist.
In a bowl, layer chopped dates and chopped almonds.
Continue layering with alternate layers of fruit, nuts, and cereal.
Let stand under a press until firm, draining off moisture.
Turn onto a plate, slice, and serve with cream or milk.
For longer storage, prepare with water instead of milk.

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.

Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together217 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).