Name: Charlotte Snowballs
Ingredients: sponge cake mixture; boiled icing; whipped cream; sugar (to sweeten cream); flavoring (to taste); candied cherry (for topping); wine or orange jelly (optional)

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 ↓

Charlotte Snowballs

Ingredients

Directions

Bake the sponge cake mixture in deep round gem pans.
Once cooled, ice the outside with boiled icing.
Fill the center with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.
Top with a candied cherry or fill with wine or orange jelly and whipped cream.
Surround the cakes with jelly when serving.

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).
Cherry + winetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together423 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,598 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + cherrytop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).