Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,385 recipes mention both. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Arrange the finger gauffres around the inside of a plain circular charlotte mold.
Prepare an iced custard flavored with vanilla.
Get ready an iced Mace-doine of fruits in strawberry water ice.
An hour before serving, coat the sides of the gauffres in the mold with a 1-inch thick layer of vanilla cream ice and cover the bottom in the same way.
Fill the center with the iced Mace-doine of fruits, place a round piece of paper on top, and cover with the lid.
Immerse the pudding in rough ice mixed with coarse sea salt in a pail or tub, cover with a damp cloth, and set in a cool place until needed.
Turn the pudding out of the mold onto a serving dish with the decorated top placed on it.
Garnish around the base and center with small gauffres shaped like cornets, each filled with a little vanilla cream ice and topped with a strawberry.
To prepare the decorated top, ornament a circular piece of gauffre with sugar icing to imitate a scroll, allow it to dry, and complete the decoration with red currant and apple jelly between the scrolls.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Vanilla + strawberrytop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,385 recipes
Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).
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Strawberry + appletop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together281 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Vanilla + sugartop 3% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together35,031 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,961 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Vanilla + appletop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,501 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vanilla and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Flavor stand-ins for the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, vanilla, strawberry, sugar, red currant, apple):
- Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
- Clovebetter flavor fit
- Peppermintbetter flavor fit
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, vanilla, strawberry, sugar, red currant, apple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
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