Name: Wine Toast
Ingredients: stale baker's bread; boiling lard; boiling water; powdered sugar; sweet wine sauce

Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Wine Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Fry slices of stale baker's bread in boiling lard until golden brown.
Dip each slice quickly in boiling water to remove excess grease.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and arrange on a hot plate.
Cut out the slices with a round cutter, removing all the crust.
Pour sweet wine sauce over the toasts while hot and serve immediately.

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 + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + winetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together956 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,934 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,638 recipes

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