Name: Tipsy Cake, or Brandy Trifle
Ingredients: light sponge cake or Savoy cake; good French brandy; blanched almonds; rich cold boiled custard; white wine; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Brandy and white wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake, or Brandy Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the sponge or Savoy cake in enough brandy to absorb it.
Insert blanched almonds into the cake, cutting them into spikes.
Pour rich cold boiled custard around the cake.
Alternatively, pour white wine or a mixture of wine and brandy over the cake, adding lemon juice if 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.

Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together620 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,655 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,832 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,969 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Almond + white winetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together331 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).