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Dessert

Macedoine of Fruit

A chilled dessert of fruit layered in wine jelly and set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and pear work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 223 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Macedoine of Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare wine jelly according to package instructions.

  2. If using fresh fruit, boil it in syrup, then drain before layering.

Assemble and set

  1. Layer the fruit in a mold, alternating with layers of wine jelly.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool and set in the mold until firm.

Serve

  1. Unmold and serve chilled.

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. Wine + peartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together254 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Wine + syruptop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 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

Wine jelly
Sets into a firm, sliceable base that holds the fruit layers together.
Various fruits
Provides flavor, color, and bulk between the layers of jelly.
Syrup
Sweetens the fresh fruit and carries flavor when the fruit is boiled.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool and set until firm. Unmolding too early can cause the layers to slump or break. The jelly needs time to cool and gel fully, so the mold holds its shape.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Pearthe original
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, 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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