Name: Iced Fruits for Desserts
Ingredients: 1 egg white; finely pulverized sugar; desired fruits (oranges, lemons, cherries, strawberries, currants, peaches, pears, pineapples)

Why it works: Peach and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 114 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Iced Fruits for Desserts

Ingredients

1 egg white
finely pulverized sugar
desired fruits (oranges, lemons, cherries, strawberries, currants, peaches, pears, pineapples)

Directions

Dip the fruit in the beaten egg white.
Coat the fruit in finely pulverized sugar.
Repeat the dipping in egg white and coating in sugar until the icing reaches the desired thickness.
For oranges and lemons, carefully pare and remove the white inner skin to prevent bitterness, then cut into thin slices or quarters.
For cherries, strawberries, and currants, choose the largest and finest, removing stems.
Pare peaches and cut them in halves, or leave stems on for pears and ice them.
Cut pineapples into thin slices and then divide into quarters.

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.

Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pear + pineappletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together169 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together168 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, orange, lemon, peach, pear, pineapple):

Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, orange, lemon, peach, pear, pineapple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.