Name: Tipsy Cake
Ingredients: 8 sponge cakes; raspberry jam; 1 pint boiled custard; ½ pint sherry; cherries (for garnish); angelica (for garnish); chopped pistachios (for garnish); baked almonds (for garnish)

Why it works: Pistachio and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Split the sponge cakes and spread a good layer of raspberry jam on each half.
Replace the halves and arrange them compactly in a dish to resemble one large cake.

Soak and top

Pour the sherry over the cakes and let them soak for 1 hour.
Prepare the boiled custard as directed and let it cool.
Pour the cooled custard over the soaked cakes.
Garnish with cherries, angelica, chopped pistachios, or baked almonds as desired.

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.

Pistachio + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together693 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Angelica + pistachiotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Angelica + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together552 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Raspberry + pistachiotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together62 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cakes: Form the base layers that soak up the sherry and hold the dish together.
Raspberry jam: Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the cake layers.
Boiled custard: Adds a rich, creamy layer that moistens the cake and softens it further.
Sherry: Soaks into the sponge, adding moisture and a fragrant, wine-like flavour.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, sherry, pistachio, almond):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits about as well
Angelicathe original
Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, sherry, pistachio, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.