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Dessert

Mock Strawberries

A chilled dessert made from sliced peaches and apples, sweetened with sugar and served with pounded ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mock Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and layer

  1. Cut the peaches and apple into squares the size of a strawberry.

  2. Layer the peach and apple squares alternately in a dish.

  3. Sprinkle the top thickly with sugar.

  4. Add pounded ice on top.

Rest and serve

  1. Let the mixture stand for about 2 hours.

  2. Mix the peaches and apples thoroughly and let stand for an additional hour before serving.

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. Peach + appletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Peaches
Provide the main fruit flavor and juice that forms the syrup as the mixture rests.
Apple
Adds firmer texture and a tart note that balances the sweet peaches.
Sugar
Draws juice out of the fruit, dissolving into a syrup and sweetening the dish.
Ice
Chills the mixture and slowly melts into the fruit juices, diluting the syrup.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the top thickly with sugar. Sugar draws liquid out of the fruit by osmosis and dissolves into a syrup. Enough sugar on top ensures the fruit is coated and the juices become sweet and well flavored during the resting time.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar. 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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