Name: Tipsy Cake
Ingredients: 1 molded sponge or Savoy cake (3-4 days old); ½ cup sweet wine or sherry; 6 tablespoons brandy; 2 ounces sweet almonds; 1 pint rich custard

Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Tipsy Cake

Ingredients

1 molded sponge or Savoy cake (3-4 days old)
½ cup sweet wine or sherry
6 tablespoons brandy
2 ounces sweet almonds
1 pint rich custard

Directions

Cut the bottom of the cake level to make it stand firm in the dish.
Make a small hole in the center of the cake.
Pour sweet wine or sherry mixed with brandy over the cake to soak it.

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.

Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,969 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Wine + almondtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).