Why it works: Sugar and filbert work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Preserved Strawberries
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 1 pound of strawberries with 1 pound of powdered sugar.
Cook until the strawberries are half done.
Add a small piece of alum for every 5 pounds of fruit.
Continue cooking until fully preserved.
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.
-
Sugar + filberttop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together143 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
- Strawberries
- Provide the fruit that is cooked and preserved, supplying the main flavor and body.
- Powdered sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and preserves it, while adding sweetness and thickening the syrup.
- Alum
- Firms the fruit tissue so the strawberries hold their shape during long cooking.
The step that matters
Cooking until half done before adding alum. Heating the fruit gently while the sugar slowly draws out its water lets sugar penetrate the strawberries. Adding alum at this point helps firm the fruit so it keeps its shape as cooking continues.
“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.
More preserved strawberries recipes
You might also like
Green Corn Pudding64 recipes
Cornmeal mush12 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.