Name: Strawberry Cake
Ingredients: Fresh strawberries; Sugar; Egg whites; Pistachio or pink icing

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Cake

Ingredients

Fresh strawberries
Sugar
Egg whites
Pistachio or pink icing

Directions

Prepare a loaf cake and tint it pink with fresh strawberry juice.
Ice the cake with a delicate pistachio or pink icing, marking it for slicing.
Dip large unhulled strawberries in unbeaten egg whites, then coat them in fine red sugar for garnish.
Add more sugar to the icing for a second thicker coat on the cake.
Once dry, adjust the icing consistency if needed and use a pastry bag to decorate the cake with preferred patterns.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,233 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg + pistachiotop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together822 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).