Name: Curd and Cream Mould
Ingredients: 4 eggs; a little grated nutmeg; lemon peel; ⅓ cup brandy; 2 ounces currants, washed and picked; Puff Paste (about ¼ inch thick); ½ pint cream; loaf sugar to taste

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Curd and Cream Mould

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, mix the curd and set it near the fire.
Beat the yolks of the eggs with nutmeg, lemon peel, and brandy.
Add the egg mixture and currants to the curd and stir well.
Prepare tins lined with Puff Paste and notch the edges.
Fill each tin with the curd mixture and bake for 20 minutes.
For a mould, place the curd in a mould with holes and let it stand for 6 hours.
Carefully turn it out onto a dish and pour over sweetened cream and nutmeg.

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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, cream, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Orangefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.