Name: Strawberry Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 sponge cake; ¾ lb. Devonshire cream; ½ lb. strawberries; icing sugar

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Strawberry Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 sponge cake
¾ lb. Devonshire cream
½ lb. strawberries
icing sugar

Directions

Prepare the sandwiches

Cut the stale sponge cake into slices about ⅛ inch thick.
Spread a thick layer of Devonshire cream on each slice.
Remove the stalks from the strawberries and slice them with a silver knife.
Layer the strawberry slices on top of the cream, sprinkle with icing sugar, and cover with another slice of cake.
Spread cream over the top of the sandwiches.

Finish and serve

Cut into fancy shapes, preferably squares or fingers.
Arrange on dessert papers and garnish with whole ripe strawberries.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake: Provides the light, soft base and structure that holds the layers together.
Devonshire cream: Adds richness and moisture, binding the cake and fruit together.
Strawberries: Contribute fresh acidity, sweetness and aroma that balance the rich cream.
Icing sugar: Adds quick-dissolving sweetness to the strawberry layer.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.