Name: Lemon Sandwich
Ingredients: Genoese cake; water icing; lemon cheese cake mixture; pistachio nuts

Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Lemon Sandwich

Ingredients

Genoese cake
water icing
lemon cheese cake mixture
pistachio nuts

Directions

Split the Genoese cake in half.
Spread the lemon cheese cake mixture on one half.
Reassemble the cake.
Cover the top with water icing.
Sprinkle finely chopped pistachio nuts on top.
Cut into finger or fancy shapes.

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.

Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together425 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together431 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + nutstop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Cheese + nutstop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together101 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).
Cheese + pistachiotop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together44 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).