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Dessert

Macedoine of Preserved Fruits

A dessert of preserved fruits set in wine or orange jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Macedoine of Preserved Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly layer

  1. Pour 1 quart of wine or orange jelly into a glass dish.

  2. Once the jelly has set, add the green grapes, apricots, cherries, strawberries, bananas, and oranges.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the remaining jelly over the fruits.

  2. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours 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. Apricot + bananatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate (fruity).

  2. Apricot + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Apricot + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wine or orange jelly
Gelling base that sets around the fruit and gives the dish its firm, sliceable structure.
Apricots
Adds juicy body and a sweet, tangy fruit flavor to the set jelly.
Strawberries
Contribute moisture, sweetness, and a bright aroma that carries through the jelly.
Bananas
Soft, mildly sweet pieces that add body and a creamy texture among the firmer fruit.

The step that matters

Add the fruit only after the jelly has set. Fruit dropped into liquid jelly sinks or floats unevenly, because the fruit is denser or lighter than the liquid. Once the jelly is partly gelled, it holds the pieces where they are placed, so the layers stay even when the rest of the jelly is poured over them.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, banana, wine):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, banana, wine. 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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