Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Gum Pastilles, or Jujubes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gum
Soak the gum arabic in tepid water, then strain it clean.
Cook the mixture
In a sugar boiler, combine the soaked gum and sugar.
Stir over moderate heat until it boils and reduces to a small pearl degree.
Add the orange-flower water and stir together on the fire.
Set and shape
Remove from heat, skim off the froth, and cast the mixture in layers of starch powder in a flat box.
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.
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Gum arabic
- Forms the gel structure that gives the pastilles their chewy texture.
- Fine sugar
- Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, body and firmness to the set pastilles.
- Orange-flower water
- Adds a floral aroma that defines the flavour of this confection.
The step that matters
Reducing to a small pearl. Boiling until the syrup reaches the small pearl stage concentrates the sugar enough for the pastilles to set firm. Stopping too early leaves them soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes them brittle.
“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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