Name: Cocoa Nut Hardbake, or Eggs and Bacon
Ingredients: Cocoa nut slices; Nonpareils (various colors); Sugar; Cream of tartar; Cochineal (for coloring)

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 ↓

Cocoa Nut Hardbake, or Eggs and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the cocoa nut and dry the slices.
Arrange the slices on a pouring plate, leaving half an inch between them.
Sprinkle nonpareils between the slices.
Boil sugar with cream of tartar until it cracks.
Color the sugar mixture with a little cochineal.
Pour the colored sugar over the cocoa nut slices and nonpareils, about a quarter inch thick.

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).
Cocoa + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together304 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together956 recipes

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