Name: Apple Cream Tartlets
Ingredients: 1 pint apple pulp from roasted apples; 2 oz sugar; Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon; ½ pint thick cream; 1 oz gelatine; 2 tablespoons milk; Puff pastry for tartlet shells; Glace cherries for garnish

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Cream Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make tartlet shells from puff pastry and let them cool.
Rub the apple pulp through a sieve, then add sugar and lemon juice, and let it cool.
Dissolve the gelatine in the milk, then stir it into the cooled apple mixture.
Whisk the cream until stiff, then gently mix it with the apple mixture.
When the mixture begins to set, fill the pastry cases and garnish with glace cherries.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).