Name: Caudle
Ingredients: 1 pint cold gruel; 4 tablespoons cream; 2 tablespoons cherry brandy or noyau; castor sugar to taste

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Caudle

Ingredients

1 pint cold gruel
4 tablespoons cream
2 tablespoons cherry brandy or noyau
castor sugar to taste

Directions

Mix the cream with the cold gruel.
Add the cherry brandy or noyau.
Sweeten to taste with castor sugar.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + cherry brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Cherry brandy + sugartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together61 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).