Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cranberry Roll
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Stew cranberries in enough water to prevent burning.
Sweeten to taste and strain the mixture; let it cool.
Assemble and cook
Make a paste using flour.
Spread the cooled cranberry mixture on the paste about 1 inch thick.
Roll it up and tie it in a flannel cloth.
Boil for 2 hours and serve with sweet sauce.
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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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cranberries
- Provide the tart fruit base that gels into the filling as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart cranberries to taste.
- Flour
- Forms the paste that wraps the filling and holds the roll together.
The step that matters
Rolling and tying the roll. The roll must be wrapped snugly in the cloth and tied firmly, because a loose wrap lets water into the filling during the long boil and can cause the roll to fall apart.
“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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