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Fruits a LA Madeleine

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 377 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruits a LA Madeleine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the canned pineapple by removing any black spots from the flesh.

  2. Cut the pineapple in half lengthwise, then slice each half into thick crosswise pieces.

  3. Cover the pineapple slices with cold syrup at 25 degrees Celsius.

  4. After six hours, drain the syrup, mix in some moistened sugar, and cook it to 30 degrees Celsius.

  5. Once cooled, pour the syrup back over the pineapple slices.

  6. In a bowl, combine 12 whole firm apricots and cover them with syrup.

  7. Wash 2 handfuls of red cherries in warm water and place them in a small saucepan with warm syrup.

  8. Prepare a madeleine batter with 1 ¼ cups sugar, 2 cups flour, ⅓ cup cornstarch, 1 cup butter, 7 eggs, ¾ cup ground almonds, 4 tablespoons cognac, 2 tablespoons orange blossom water, and a pinch of salt.

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.

  1. Pineapple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, sugar, apricot, flour, butter, egg, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, sugar, apricot, flour, butter, egg, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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