Name: Charlotte Parisienne, Sur Socle
Ingredients: 22 cm diameter cake mold; 32 cm height cake mold; Genoise cake; Royal icing; Sugar for glazing; Sugar for decoration; Chocolate glazed small cakes; Angelica for decoration; Sugar for spun sugar pompom

Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Charlotte Parisienne, Sur Socle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a medium-sized cake mold, 22 cm in diameter and 32 cm in height.
Cut the genoise cake into shapes using a cookie cutter.
Cover the cake pieces with royal icing and glaze with sugar.
Assemble the cake in the mold, ensuring it is securely fixed.
Decorate the top with a slightly larger layer, featuring a spun sugar aigrette in the center.
Surround the base with a chain of small chocolate glazed cakes.

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + angelicatop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Sugar + angelicatop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together487 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).