Name: Apple Cream
Ingredients: 2 apples; juice of 1 lemon; ½ cup pine kernels; sweet cream; spices to taste

Why it works: Lemon and pine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 480 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut and grind the apples, then mash them smooth with the lemon juice.
Grind the pine kernels and add them to the apple mixture.
Beat the mixture until creamy.

Serve

When ready to serve, add sweet cream and flavor with spices to suit your taste.

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.

Lemon + pinetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together480 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + pinetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pine + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together123 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the bulk and fresh fruit flavor of the cream.
Pine kernels: Add richness and a nutty texture to the mixture.
Sweet cream: Adds fat and a smooth, light texture when added at serving.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens flavor and slows the apples from browning.