Name: Bran Tea
Ingredients: 1 pint wheat bran; 1 quart boiling water; sugar to taste; cream to taste

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Bran Tea

Ingredients

1 pint wheat bran
1 quart boiling water
sugar to taste
cream to taste

Directions

Add the wheat bran to the boiling water.
Let it stand in a hot place for 1 hour without boiling.
Strain the mixture.
Serve with sugar and cream.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together681 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,071 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).