Name: Compote of Dried Fruits in Apple Jelly
Ingredients: variety of small dried fruits (e.g., American crab apples, cherries, apricots, pineapples, green apricots, pieces of apple); bright apple jelly

Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Compote of Dried Fruits in Apple Jelly

Ingredients

variety of small dried fruits (e.g., American crab apples, cherries, apricots, pineapples, green apricots, pieces of apple)
bright apple jelly

Directions

Prepare a variety of small dried fruits and place them in small coffee cups or jelly glasses.
Pour hot apple jelly over the fruits until they are filled.
Allow the jelly to set and cool completely.
Carefully turn out the set jelly and fruits into a serving dish without breaking their shape.

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.

Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together777 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
Apricot + pineappletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together377 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together530 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Crab + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together343 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Crab + pineappletop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).