Name: Candied Fruit
Ingredients: barberries; cherries; angelica; orange; apple paste; cinnamon drops; paste of almonds; dry fruit; clarified sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Candied Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preserve the fruit in syrup, strain, and rinse in warm water to remove excess sugar.
Ensure the fruit is completely dry.
Arrange the fruit in a nearly square mold with wire gratings, placing them side by side without touching.
Cover each layer of fruit with another type, finishing with a grating on top.
Place a weight on top to keep everything firm.
Heat the mold in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).
Boil enough clarified sugar to fill the mold, removing it from heat when it reaches a light boil.
Skim off any candy formed on the surface as it cools.
Pour the sugar into the mold and let it candy undisturbed for 10 to 12 hours.
Strain the candy by uncorking the mold and tilting it over a bowl to catch the syrup.

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.

Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Angelica + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together80 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (angelica, orange, cinnamon, almond, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Raisinfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against angelica, orange, cinnamon, almond, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.