Why it works: Persimmon and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Persimmon Fudge
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fudge
Combine persimmon pulp and sugar in a saucepan.
Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until graining begins.
Add baking soda and stir until the mixture is quite stiff.
Set
Spread the fudge on a buttered platter or paraffin paper.
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.
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Persimmon + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together75 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Persimmon pulp
- Provides the main flavor and moisture that the sugar cooks into a soft fudge.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fudge and, as it cooks and cools, forms the fine crystals that give fudge its texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic persimmon pulp and helps the mixture stiffen as it is stirred.
The step that matters
Stirring until quite stiff. Stop cooking and stir only until the mixture thickens, since overcooking makes fudge hard and stirring too little leaves it runny. Fudge sets as sugar crystals form during cooling, so the timing of this step decides the final texture.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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