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.
Strain the soaked gum arabic clean.
Cook the pastille base
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 over the heat.
Remove from the stove and skim off the froth.
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 thick, elastic body that sets the pastilles.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, helps the mixture set firm.
- Orange-flower water
- Adds a floral aroma to the finished pastilles.
The step that matters
Reducing to a small pearl. Boiling the gum and sugar until they reach the small pearl stage concentrates the mixture so it sets properly. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and 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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