Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Hot Fruit Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the cornstarch smoothly in a little cold water.
Stir it into the fruit.
Boil for 5 to 10 minutes.
Mash and strain.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornstarch or flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch granules swell and set when heated.
- Fruit or berries
- Provides the main flavor and the body of the sauce.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the fruit's tartness.
The step that matters
Mix the cornstarch smoothly in cold water. Starch clumps when it hits hot liquid directly. Dispersing it in cold water first lets the granules separate, so they thicken the sauce evenly when it boils.
“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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