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Preserve

Candied Fruits

A mixture of apricots, cherries, greengages, barberries, and oranges candied in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Candied Fruits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare two boxes: one tin (12x8x3 inches) with a hole for syrup overflow, and one smaller wire box with a cover.

  2. Layer the fruits in the wire box and cover it to keep the contents in place.

  3. Place the wire box inside the tin box and put it in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 1 pint of syrup until it reaches the 'little blow' stage.

  2. Skim off the candy that forms on the syrup's surface and pour it among the fruit layers.

Finish candying

  1. Cover the wire box tightly and leave it in the oven for 12 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 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

Apricots
Fruit that takes up the sugar syrup and becomes candied and firm.
Cherries
Fruit that takes up the sugar syrup and becomes candied and firm.
Greengages
Fruit that takes up the sugar syrup and becomes candied and firm.
Barberries
Fruit that takes up the sugar syrup and becomes candied and firm.
Oranges
Fruit that takes up the sugar syrup and becomes candied and firm.
Syrup
Concentrated sugar that penetrates the fruit and preserves it as the water evaporates.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to the 'little blow' stage. The syrup must reach the right sugar concentration. If it is too thin, the fruit stays wet and spoils. If it is too concentrated, the sugar may crystallize or harden the fruit too much. Reaching the target stage gives the fruit a stable, candied texture.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, syrup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, syrup. 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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