Name: Fingers, or Naples Biscuits
Ingredients: 12 to 20 eggs; 1 pound sugar; batter for biscuits

Why it works: Sugar and biscuit are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,874 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Fingers, or Naples Biscuits

Ingredients

12 to 20 eggs
1 pound sugar
batter for biscuits

Directions

Prepare the batter as directed for Savoy cakes.
Fill a biscuit forcer with the batter and secure the open end.
Cut a sheet of foolscap paper in half and fold it lengthwise to mark a center line.
Hold the forcer in your right hand, pressing the batter out with your thumb while guiding the pointed end with your left hand.
Drop the batter in straight lines, about 3 inches long and ½ inch wide, forming two rows divided by the center line.
When the sheet is full, place it on a large sheet of kitchen paper.

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.

Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + biscuittop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,643 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).