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Fruit and Nut Glaces

A confection of sugar syrup with nuts and fruits, dipped and set on waxed paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit and Nut Glaces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, water, and vinegar until it threads.

Dip and set

  1. Drop nuts, figs, cherries, or grapes into the syrup one at a time.

  2. Use a buttered fork to dip them out and place on waxed paper or a buttered pan.

  3. Do not shake the syrup and work rapidly.

  4. Keep the syrup hot in a double boiler to prevent crystallization.

  5. Dip the fruits a second time to improve appearance.

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. Fig + grapetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Walnut + pecanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pecans + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Walnut + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup that hardens into a crisp, glossy coating on the nuts and fruit.
Vinegar
Acidity helps keep the sugar syrup from recrystallizing, so the coating stays smooth.

The step that matters

Keep the syrup from crystallizing. Shaking the syrup or letting it cool unevenly can seed sugar crystals, which turn the glaze grainy. Working quickly while keeping the syrup hot in a double boiler keeps it clear and smooth.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, walnut, pecans, fig, grape):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, walnut, pecans, fig, grape. 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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