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Dessert

Tutti-frutti Candy

A candied fruit confection made with sugar syrup and chopped raisins, citron, figs, and candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and fig work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Tutti-frutti Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Chop the seeded raisins, citron, figs, and a few candied cherries.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 2 cups of granulated sugar and ½ cup of boiling water in a kettle.

  2. Boil hard for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Pour the syrup into a bowl.

  5. Flavor the syrup.

Make the candy

  1. Stir rapidly with a spoon until it resembles cream.

  2. Add the chopped fruit.

  3. Stir for a little longer.

  4. Press the mixture thin onto buttered tins.

  5. Cut into squares.

  6. Wrap in waxed paper.

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. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into the candy's firm, sweet body.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the candy.
Figs
Add chewy texture and soft sweetness to the candy.
Candied cherries
Add bright color and sweet, chewy pieces throughout the candy.
Citron
Adds candied-fruit flavor and chewy texture to the candy.

The step that matters

Stir the syrup until it resembles cream. Stirring a boiled sugar syrup as it cools encourages fine sugar crystals, giving a creamy, smooth-textured candy. Stirring too little leaves it glassy or grainy, and stirring after it has set makes it hard to press thin.</br>

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Datesfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. 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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