Name: Apples, a LA Puktuguaise
Ingredients: 18 apples; orange marmalade; 4 egg whites; 4 ounces sifted sugar; red-currant jelly; apple jelly; greengage jam or apricot jam

Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 777 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: custard, pastry

Directions

Prepare a dome of apple pieces on a layer of orange marmalade.
Leave the center hollow and fill it with pastry custard.
Cover the dome with more orange marmalade.
Whip the egg whites until firm, then mix in the sifted sugar.
Spread the meringue over the apple dome and create a design with a paper cornet.
Sprinkle sifted sugar on top and bake until light fawn in color.
Before serving, fill the center with layers of red-currant jelly, apple jelly, and greengage or apricot jam for decoration.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together777 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
Apple + orangetop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,229 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + apricottop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together703 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Apple + curranttop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,918 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Currant + apricottop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together188 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, orange, egg, sugar, apricot):

Peachbetter flavor fit
Plumbetter flavor fit
Vanillabetter flavor fit
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, orange, egg, sugar, apricot. 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).