Name: Apricot or Peach Filling
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 4 tablespoons powdered sugar; apricots or peaches

Why it works: Sugar and apricot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apricot or Peach Filling

Ingredients

2 eggs
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
apricots or peaches

Directions

Peel the apricots or peaches and cut them into thin slices.
Beat the egg whites until light.
Gradually add the powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
Layer the egg white mixture on a layer of cake, then add a layer of fruit.
Repeat layers until all ingredients are used.
Dust the top with sugar and serve.

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.

Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + apricottop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,712 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).