Name: Fruit and Nut Creams
Ingredients: 1 cup raisins, seeded; 1 cup currants; 1 cup figs, chopped fine; 1 cup citron, chopped fine; 2 cups uncooked French cream; 1 cup chopped almonds; 1 cup chopped hickory nuts; 1 cup chopped butternuts; 1 cup chopped English walnuts

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fruit and Nut Creams

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, mix the raisins, currants, figs, and citron with the uncooked French cream while it is still soft.
Stir in the sugar until well combined.
Add the chopped nuts of your choice and mix thoroughly.
Form the mixture into balls, bars, or squares.
You can use several kinds of nuts together.

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.

Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together519 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Almond + butternuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Fig + walnuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together373 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

French cream: Adds fat and moisture, and binds the fruit and nuts into one soft mass.
Raisins: Add sweetness and a chewy texture.
Figs: Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy body.
Currants: Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewiness.
Chopped nuts: Add crunch and a rich, toasty flavor against the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Mix the fruit into the cream while it is still soft. Cream that has firmed up resists blending, so the fruit and sugar will not distribute evenly and the mixture may crumble when shaped. Working while it is soft keeps the mass uniform and easy to form.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, fig, cream, almond, nuts, butternut, walnut):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Cherryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, fig, cream, almond, nuts, butternut, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Almond Sponge Cake26 recipes

Almond Custard22 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Fruit and Nut Creams