Name: Sponge Cake Tarts
Ingredients: sponge cakes; jam; chopped almonds or other nuts; whipped cream; sifted sugar; stewed peach (or tinned peach)

Why it works: Almond and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sponge Cake Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Scoop out the centers of the sponge cakes.
Roll the cakes in jam, then in chopped almonds or other nuts.
Fill the hollow of each cake with a layer of whipped cream sweetened with sifted sugar.
Top with half a stewed peach.

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 + peachtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).