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Drink

Strawberry and Orange Punch

A chilled fruit punch made with strawberry juice, orange juice, sugar syrup, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberry and Orange Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. Make a thin syrup by combining 1 part sugar with 2 parts water.

  2. Add 1 pint of strawberry juice and ½ pint of orange juice to the syrup. Sweeten the mixture to taste.

Serve

  1. When serving, place 2 tablespoons of shaved ice into each glass.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Strawberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together726 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Syrup + strawberrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the punch and dissolves into the water to form a thin syrup.
Strawberry juice
Provides the main fruit flavor and color of the punch.
Orange juice
Adds bright citrus flavor and acidity that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Sweeten the mixture to taste. Fruit juices vary in sweetness and acidity, so sugar added at the end should be adjusted by tasting. Sugar dissolves best in warm or thin syrup, so it is added before the juices and mixed fully.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, strawberry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, strawberry. 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.

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