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Dessert

Macedoine De Fruits

A chilled fruit compote made with currants, cherries, gooseberries, raspberries, and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Macedoine De Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and mix the white currants, red currants, cherries, ripe gooseberries, and raspberries in a deep dish.

  2. Dissolve sufficient white sugar in enough water to cover the fruit, adjusting the sugar based on the fruit's acidity.

  3. Pour the sugar water over the mixed fruit.

Rest and serve

  1. Let the mixture stand for two hours before serving.

  2. If available, place the mixture in a mold and ice it for a more elegant dessert.

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. White currant + red curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. White currant + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the currants and gooseberries.
Red currants
Provide tart acidity and bright flavour that defines the compote.
Raspberries
Add aroma and a soft, juicy texture to the fruit mixture.
Cherries
Contribute sweetness, body and juice to the compote.

The step that matters

Adjusting the sugar to the fruit's acidity. Sugar must be tuned to how tart the fruit is, because sweetness offsets acidity. Too little leaves the compote sharp, while too much masks the fruit flavour. Tasting the sugar water before pouring helps get the balance right.

Swap the white currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. White currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red currant, sugar. 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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