Name: Berlin Puddings
Ingredients: sponge cake mixture; apricot jam or red currant jelly; coconut or chopped pistachio nuts; sherry; whipped cream

Why it works: Apricot and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 173 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Berlin Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Bake the sponge cake mixture in dariole molds.
Once cold, scoop out the center of each cake.
Brush the outside with apricot jam or red currant jelly.
Roll the cakes in coconut or chopped pistachio nuts.
Soak each cake with 2 teaspoons of sherry.
Fill the center with jam and top with whipped cream.

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 + sherrytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together173 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Apricot + coconuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together100 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,223 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,038 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Coconut + sherrytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together53 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).