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Filbert Liquor Dragees

A confection made from filbert emulsion, sugar, orange blossom water, gum, and alcohol.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Filbert Liquor Dragees

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Pound the filberts very fine in water.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth to extract the emulsion.

Finish the dragees

  1. Add a few drops of orange blossom water, gum solution, and alcohol to the emulsion.

  2. Use 1 quart of filbert emulsion to thin down 36 pounds of sugar boiled at 300°F (150°C).

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. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + filberttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Filbert + orangetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

Filberts
Supply the nut oils and emulsion that give the dragees their main flavour.
Sugar
Forms the bulk of the sugar coating and provides the sweetness.
Gum solution
Helps the sugar coating adhere and set smoothly.
Alcohol
Adds aroma and a sharp, warming flavour.
Orange blossom water
Adds a light floral aroma.

The step that matters

Thinning the boiled sugar with emulsion. Sugar boiled to 300°F is very concentrated and can crystallise or turn brittle as it cools. Thinning it with the measured filbert emulsion keeps it fluid enough to work into a smooth, even coating.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange. 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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