Name: Apricot Cakes
Ingredients: 4 egg whites; sugar; Apricot Jam; puff pastry or patten paste; chopped blanched almonds; sifted sugar

Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apricot Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix sugar with the egg whites.
Spread the mixture over the marmalade and bake until golden-brown.
Roll out puff pastry thinly and place on a baking sheet.
Spread Apricot Jam over the pastry.
Roll out another piece of pastry and place it on top.
Mix chopped almonds with an equal amount of sifted sugar.
Add the whipped egg white to the almond mixture and spread over the top crust.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.
Allow to cool, then cut into diamonds or oblongs.

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.

Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).