Name: Neapolitan Ices
Ingredients: raspberry ice; lemon ice; chocolate ice; plain cream ice; ice; coarse sea salt; melted mutton fat

Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Neapolitan Ices

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare four different ices: raspberry, lemon, chocolate, and plain cream in separate freezers.
Layer the ices in a pewter mould, using an ice spoon to level each layer.
Press the cover down to make the ice solid and firm.
If you have an ice cave, place the mould inside to freeze completely.
If no ice cave is available, surround the mould with ice and coarse sea salt, ensuring the joints are watertight with melted mutton fat.

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.

Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,466 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Raspberry + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together457 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,332 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + muttontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together550 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, chocolate, cream, mutton):

Vanillafits better
Strawberryfits better
Red currantfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, chocolate, cream, mutton. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.