Name: Cheese Filling
Ingredients: 2 cheeses (cream cheese); ½ cup chopped English walnuts; 1 tablespoon melted butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¾ cup cream; cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Cheese and cream cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 473 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, stir the cream cheese with a spoon, gradually adding the cream until soft and creamy.
Add the melted butter, salt, and cayenne pepper, then mix well.
Fold in the finely chopped walnuts.

Serve

Serve this filling on wafers or butter thins for teas or luncheons.

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.

Cheese + cream cheesetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream cheese + walnuttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together439 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).